On June 6, 2011, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) introduced a bill which specifically requires VA to have a doctor of chiropractic staff at all of its major facilities by 2014. The bill was co-sponsored by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-IA), Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
Currently, chiropractic care is only available at a few VA facilities across the country, and many major metropolitan areas are currently without doctors of chiropractic care. If enacted this legislation would presumably allow all veterans to have access to chiropractic care at any VA facility and would also allow VA to have more treatment providers on hand to assist veterans that suffer from musculoskeletal disabilities. This could potentially increase the number of veterans who seek treatment from a chiropractor and possibly reduce the length of time veterans with musculoskeletal disabilities wait for treatment.
Without this bill, further expansion of chiropractic care to VA facilities would be on a case-by-case basis and would probably experience significant delays.
The text of the legislation may be found at https://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s1147/text.
