Congressional Leaders Say Patients Are the Key to Chiropractic Inclusion in Health Reform
WASHINGTON, DC -- The chiropractic profession must activate its nationwide pool of 20 million patients to stand any chance of gaining inclusion in a national health care reform plan, was the central message of a bi-partisan group of congressional leaders at the ACA's National Chiropractic Legislative Conference Feb. 24-25.
More than 500 attendees heard high ranking members of Congress lend their support for chiropractic in health care reform. "Chiropractors do more to prevent disease ... than any other group of health care providers," said Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Senator Hatch cited a 1991 study in the Journal of Occupational Medicine which concluded that work days lost were ten times higher for patients who received standard medical care than for those patients who received chiropractic care. "I believe government policies should encourage the use of chiropractic services and not inhibit this growing trend," Senator Hatch concluded.
Just a sampling of congressional comments:
< Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA): "Whatever health plan gets through .. we must provide ready access to total and complete chiropractic care." "When it comes to controlling medical costs, chiropractors aren't part of the problem, you're part of the solution ... that's the message I've been carrying to my colleagues and the president."
< Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY): "I am a living witness that the health benefits that you provide are needed when it comes to primary care. I will fight for a reform system that is fair ... and remembers the important contribution of chiropractors."
< Senator Harris Wofford (D-PA): "I want to make sure that the comprehensive benefits package does get defined in such a way that it will include chiropractic."
< Senator Republican Leader Robert Dole: "The bottom line is, we've got to get it right, and the way I feel, it's not going to be right if you're excluded."
Patients, and More Patients
Although the congressional speakers at the NCLC had differing opinions on the likely success of the president's Health Security Act, they were in agreement that face-to-face meetings with members of Congress by the DCs and the grassroots lobbying by chiropractic patients were the two keys for inclusion in the health care plan.
"You have 20 million people who trust you enough that they will come to you voluntarily," House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the conferees. He added: "Forty-five thousand chiropractors is one thing. Twenty million American citizens is another."
To get more chiropractic patients involved, the ACA has developed a "mobilization campaign." DCs receive petition forms and encourage their patients to sign them. The patient names are entered into a national database. The ACA then contacts the patients and urges them to write their members of Congress to support chiropractic inclusion in health care reform.
Congressman Thomas Bliley Jr. (R-VA) summed up the crucial strategy facing the chiropractic profession when he said the onus is on DCs to spur their patients to action. "When the calls come, things change up here," Bliley said. "That's what you have the ability to do. People trust you in health care, or they wouldn't come to see you."
