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How the new Health Care Reform will affect Massage Therapists?

I would like to know the pros and cons of this new health reform to the Massage Industry.

Mark Hyman M.D. said on his blog:

"Those of us who believe in preventive health care, integrated health care, functional medicine, and complementary and alternative medicine have special reasons to celebrate. This bill has provisions that explicitly support these approaches to health care. One of these is the creation of a National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council, which I testified about before the Senate last February."

Here is the entire article: http://www.ultrawellness.com/blog/ihpc?utm_campaign=1202-03252010&a...

I'm still confused, this new health reform is going to support alternative and preventive medicine? We as a massage therapists will benefit with this new health reform?

Would like to know your insights and concerns about this. Thanks! :)

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on March 29, 2010 at 4:55am

The bill does not address Massage. It is about how to pay for more people to be covered by insurance. Hopefully there will be changes later on that will provide for massage therapy as supportive of good health. I had written to my Senator suggesting tthat every American be given 10 massages per year in the government's health care program. The answer was the usual, a defense of the position she has taken on existing bills.

Just think how much better health in America would be if everyone could get just 10 massages a year to use as they wish. They could use them throughout the year for stress and relaxation or as healing for an injury, whatever.

Support candidates that support massage and we might see change some day.

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Permalink Reply by Robin Byler Thomas on March 29, 2010 at 10:40am

Hi Angela,

THANK YOU for posting this thread and link. It took me to a YouTube Video on a discussion from the Comparative Effectiveness Research Panel. On this panel, and in the article you have posted, is our own Janet Kahn; massage therapist and researcher, among other things.

What I'm learning, in my policy class this semester, is that historically, world wide, the public will only accept incremental changes in health care reform. Comprehensive, or major changes, have always been shot down. The effects of our new health care reform, to us as massage therapists, will probably be subtle in appearance, but allow us a "toe hold" as was said in the YouTube video. We are making slow, but sure, progress in the right direction as major stake holders are recognizing MT's value, as well as other complimentary and integrative medicine approaches. These stake holders include research funders like the National Institute of Health, the public, and allopaths (docs). This means recognition and respect, along with funding for research, which are ways we evolve as a profession.

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Permalink Reply by Ellen Stetson on March 30, 2010 at 4:29am

So far, in my opinion that we haven't seen anything close to actual health (meaning wellness) care addressed in congress. What just passed was an insurance industry reform bill, not actually health care reform:-)

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Permalink Reply by Relax & Rejuvenate on April 6, 2010 at 2:33pm

The only way anything related to health care will positively impact the massage profession is when health care becomes a matter of personal responsibility, not driven by the judgements of someone else, let alone a bureaucrat with a cushy, tax-payer funded health plan.