1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Texas Senate Bill 1188 (SB 1188) requires all Electronic Health Records and communication systems to be stored strictly within the United States. While protecting patient data is critical, the modern cloud ecosystem has turned this law into an accidental financial penalty for local providers. Major software conglomerates like Google and Microsoft gate the ability to restrict data regions behind their highest-tier, corporate enterprise plans. To comply with Texas law, independent practices, counselors, and social workers are forced to upgrade from standard business setups to bloated enterprise suites. This creates an immediate 300% to 400% increase in baseline IT compliance overhead. Independent practices cannot absorb these skyrocketing costs under fixed insurance and Medicaid reimbursement rates. This "compliance tax" forces Texas providers to divert limited resources away from frontline community care and hand them over to global tech giants, directly threatening the accessibility of local mental health and medical resources. Our Demand: We petition the Texas Legislature to amend SB 1188 to create a small-business compliance safe-harbor or technology grant for independent, state-licensed healthcare providers utilizing standard, HIPAA-compliant U.S. cloud infrastructure. Stop penalizing the local professionals serving Texas communities.