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Kimberly Houk ReportingLawmakers are feeling some heat over their controversial decision to allow IHC to require patients to sign arbitration agreements in order to continue seeing an IHC doctor. Now one lawmaker is trying to reverse that decision.
Senator Parley Hellewell admits he made a mistake when he agreed last year to let IHC force patients to sign arbitration agreements. He's now sponsoring a new bill that would repeal that law, and in the process strip IHC of its power to refuse service to anyone who chooses not to sign the agreement.
Hellewell says at the time he and other lawmakers didn't realize the full extent of what patients were being asked to give up.
Sen. Parley Hellewell, (R) Orem: “You give up your rights to sue IHC, but they don't give up their rights to sue you. You’re giving away the rights of your wife, or your husband, or your child and your unborn children to sue if there was a problem."
Hellewell says he changed his mind after receiving more than a hundred emails from angry people who didn't want to sign the IHC contract. He says there's a lot of support on Capitol Hill to reverse this decision, and the bill has a great chance of passing.
