Minnesota Law Provides for State-Funded CAM

Low-income Minnesotans could receive state-funded complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), thanks to a new law.

The law provides for the research and recommendation of CAM by the commissioner of human services, in order to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care. It directs the commissioner to incorporate CAM into the state’s Medical Assistance, MinnesotaCare and General Assistance Medical Care programs, and stipulates that CAM recommendations be posted on those state agencies’ Web sites.

The law passed with 108 ayes and 25 nays. There is no actual effective date; instead, the law stipulates that the CAM-related duties be incorporated into the commissioner’s job description.

Barbara York is the president of the Minnesota Therapeutic Massage Network/Minnesota Touch Movement Network, a professional association for massage-and-bodywork therapists. She cautioned that although increasing coverage of CAM services sounds like a positive development, several factors—including qualifications of suppliers, the potential discounting of session fees, and insurance providers’ willingness to incorporate CAM into their plans—need to be considered.

“We’ve got these people taking eight-week courses in acupuncture, things like that,” she said. “Yes, they know where to insert the needle, but that doesn’t mean they have a deep understanding of what acupuncture is. It’s not ‘insert A into B.’”

The law’s author, Republican Representative Jim Abeler, is informed as a legislator by his 27-year career as a chiropractor.

“I think there’s a goldmine in [CAM],” Abeler told MASSAGE Magazine. “My idea is that if the options available to people included a broad array [of health care], there might actually be better results in the cases and we’ll actually save money by not doing so many surgeries and [prescribing] so many drugs.”

Abeler added that therapies dismissed as bizarre in the medical realm 100 years ago are in common usage today—and that as CAM therapies are increasingly utilized, they could become the dominate force in health care.

“I think 100 years from now, massage, chiropractic, naturopathy and homeopathy will be all the normal stuff, and drugs will be archaic,” he said. “Somebody needs to push the envelope, and I guess that’s me.”

— Karen Menehan