Check out this press release from the Colorado Chiropractic Alliance:

Governor Jared Polis, joined by the Colorado Chiropractic Alliance, announced on Friday that the next round of state mandates in response to the coronavirus pandemic will include a requirement for everyone to be under chiropractic care. The CCA hired a full-time lobbyist, Matthew Baizely, who has worked tirelessly to share the latest life-saving data with state legislators.

Baizely stated, “We’ve been in this pandemic over a year. We have plenty of data from chiropractic offices across the state and from around the world demonstrating that patients under regular chiropractic care have a significant statistical benefit in the fight against COVID. Chiropractic patients are generally healthier across all major clinical indicators. They experience less illnesses, those illnesses are less severe, and they recover faster compared to people who aren’t seeing a chiropractor.”

Historically, there is a precedent for this success. “The 1918 pandemic put chiropractic on the map because of the success that was seen. This pandemic will once again show the world just how powerful it can be,” said Baizely.

State residents will be required to start care with a chiropractor by July 1st. Baizely argued for a mandate of weekly visits but had to concede to bi-weekly visits instead, “According to the best evidence, once a week is best for most people, especially when dealing with other health concerns, but once every two weeks is still very powerful when performed consistently.”

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment will be coordinating payments to local chiropractors using a recent 25 million dollar grant until a new state agency can be created to take over this effort.

The above article is completely fictional. I made it up. The lobbyist and the Alliance don’t exist.

How did it make you feel? Were you pleased to hear that legislators were using science to promote something that can actively keep us healthy while paying for it as well?

Or were you worried about the government being able to mandate one more thing, taking away your ability to choose for yourself?

This sounds like something we as chiropractors should fully support, but we don’t. Your body is your own domain and you should always have a choice over what happens to you. Even if a mandate like this would be good for business, we prefer to work with people who willingly choose to see us and who are actively engaged in their care.

The government can surely help to guide and direct the information that comes out, but they don’t have a perfect track record for impartiality or solid advice. One example is to ask: Why is asbestos banned from the marketplace for its known link to lung disease, but cigarettes are still allowed even after this link was established decades earlier and has killed millions more people?

The government should not be in the business of picking winners and punishing losers. Even if there was a silver-bullet cure to a disease, it should still be your personal choice if you want to use it.

Should the government mandate how much water you should drink per day, or how often you should breathe? These things must happen for you to live, along with much more! It is impossible to draw the line where rules like this would stop, so they shouldn’t even start.

The winning ideas should instead be promoted by a healthy and informed society. It is more important than ever to learn as much as you can about your body, and to be an engaged consumer in the healthcare world. Our biggest marketing effort is simply asking for word-of-mouth referrals from happy patients!

We walk our talk. Even though we have many strong opinions related to health, we see it as our job to patiently educate our community about these options instead of forcing them to do what we think is best. In the end, we let the results speak for themselves.

If you are already one of our patients, thank you. We will continue to do our best for you.

If you are looking for answers to your health questions, we would love to sit down with you and see how we can help.

If you know someone who is looking for answers, please share this newsletter with them. You just might save a life.