Reid health bill helps chiropractors, drugmakers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chiropractors get a lift in the Senate health care bill, thanks to a senator from the state practitioners consider the birthplace of their profession — Iowa.

Search the fine print of the bill unveiled this week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and you'll find scores of provisions making winners out of some interest groups and losers of others, from makers of costly biological drugs to insurance company executives.

It's not surprising considering the $1 trillion, 10-year price tag of the 2,074-page legislation.

Chiropractors, sometimes criticized as unscientific by medical doctors, could join health teams designed to help primary care physicians coordinate the treatment of patients. Though the precise financial impact is unclear, the language would help steer more patients to a profession whose participation in many federal programs is limited, including Medicare, Medicaid and the medical systems for veterans, the military and civil servants.

"It's important because it just further legitimizes the services that are delivered by a chiropractor, and recognizes they are well received by the patient public," said John Falardeau, lobbyist for the American Chiropractic Association.

The language was approved earlier this year by the Senate health committee. Falardeau said that panel's chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was largely responsible for getting it included by Reid, who wrote the final Senate bill behind closed doors. The lobbyist said numerous chiropractors and their patients contacted Harkin and other senators to push for the language.

"I like to call Iowa the Cooperstown of chiropractic," said Falardeau, alluding to the site of Baseball's Hall of Fame. He noted that Iowa is where the discipline began and is home to the Palmer College of Chiropractic, where many practitioners are trained.

Less fortunate were well-paid officials of health insurance companies. Reid included language Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., got into the Senate Finance Committee version of the bill. The wording eliminates companies' tax deductions for the portion of insurance executives' pay that exceeds $500,000.

Lincoln faces a difficult re-election campaign next year, and is among a handful of moderate Democratic senators who have not said whether they will support Reid's bill. Health insurance companies have been repeatedly vilified by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, and axing an industry tax break could have populist appeal.

Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's trade group, said his group has done no lobbying on the provision.