September 2001

Some HELP for Chiropractic Education

Washington, D.C. - If Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and other legislators have their way, doctors of chiropractic may be eligible for scholarships and loan repayment programs offered by the National Health Service Corp. (NHSC).

The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has been working on the NHSC reauthorization legislation, and has already banned podiatrists and optometrists from participating in the programs.

But the HELP committee has moved to allow doctors of chiropractic to be eligible for student loan reimbursement in the NHSC program for a three-year period. If the initiative is passed by the full Senate and then the U.S. House of Representatives, Congress would decide after three years whether to make chiropractic a permanent part of the NHSC. If the chiropractic profession is given a permanent provision, doctors of chiropractic will have a federal designation as primary-care providers, and doctors of chiropractic will be eligible to receive loan reimbursement under the NHSC program.

Now that NHSC legislation has been reported out of committee, the next step is consideration by the full Senate. The full Senate will not consider the legislation until this month at the earliest, due to the summer recess.

The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) and the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC) headed a grassroots campaign to plead the chiropractic case to Senate offices and other key contacts. All indications are that calls from doctors of chiropractic flooded into the Senate regarding this issue. Harkin (D-Iowa) has been the lead Senate champion for chiropractors.

The ACA and ACC say they plan to continue to work with key members of the Senate to help ensure that the chiropractic provision remains in the bill when the NHSC legislation is considered on the floor of the Senate. The ACA and ACC also plan to work for the inclusion of a chiropractic provision in the House version of the legislation.

Source: ACA and Staff Reports

Industry News from:
Chiropractic News from: