Imagine a ring of car thieves lobbying the government to soften the laws against stealing cars. Don’t blame the thieves – people should be more responsible for their own cars, and that is just the chance you take when you own a car. Under the radar, without any comment by the media, in state after state they successfully lobby the legislatures to pass laws that make it more difficult to prosecute and punish car thieves.

Of course this is outrageous, but not just because it’s silly to consider that something like stealing a car should not be a serious crime. It is also outrageous for someone who is violating regulations to lobby for those very regulations to be weakened so that they can continue to break the regulations without fear of action being taken against them. At the very least such action should garner significant attention and debate, and lawmakers should consider carefully if the public’s best interest is being met, or simply the person who doesn’t want to be regulated.

This is exactly what is happening in many states with so-called “health care freedom laws” – practitioners of dubious treatments are lobbying state legislatures to weaken regulations against practicing dubious treatments. There are even specific cases in which an individual practitioner was found to be practicing below the acceptable standard of care, but was able to escape regulation because of laws specifically passed to protect substandard care. This is exactly what happened with Dr. William Hammesfahr – he was found to be practicing substandard care by the State of Florida, but was able to appeal and win on the grounds that his treatment was “alternative” and therefore magically exempt from the standard of care under Florida’s new health care freedom law.