MAHA and America’s Chiropractors Are Agreed: Congress Must Pass Legislation to Upgrade Medicare to Include Chiropractic Care for Seniors

The MAHA Center in Washington, D.C. is galvanizing chiropractors across America for a simple remedy to a dated Medicare system.

The cornerstone of the Make America Healthy Again movement is to prioritize preventive health practices in response to the nation’s chronic disease epidemic. This includes healthier diets, more exercise, and expanded access to non-drug, non-surgical care, as well as chiropractic services.

America’s senior citizens also deserve to see a chiropractor of their choosing. MAHA is moving swiftly to ensure that they can, while receiving better overall healthcare support.

The alignment between MAHA and the nation’s chiropractic leadership has been building all year. Each step set up the one that followed.

In March, MAHA Action President Tony Lyons presented at The Chiropractic Summit, prompting a four-hour meeting between MAHA and chiropractic leadership in Washington, D.C.

In May, the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) and International Chiropractic Association (ICA) issued a joint statement pledging collaboration to improve patient access to chiropractic care. And in June, the MAHA Chiropractic Hub launched to carry the profession’s long-standing priorities forward.

Several key initiatives are converging to ensure senior citizens get expanded chiropractic care in 2026.

The MAHA Chiropractic Hub, hosted by MAHA Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was created to host the nation’s chiropractors and connect Americans to a broader array of preventive medical services.

The nation’s two leading chiropractic associations, the ICA and the ACA, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the MAHA Chiropractic Hub aligning policy priorities.

These organizations have at times disagreed, but share a commitment to modernize Medicare coverage for chiropractic services as soon as practical. As Brandon Hoffman, executive director of the MAHA Chiropractic Hub, put it: “For the first time in this fight, the entire profession is pulling in one direction. The agreement locks that alignment in, and now we turn it into committee action.”

Added Hoffman, “This happened because of the leadership of Leigh Merinoff and Deirdre Goldfarb and the enormous effort of the entire MAHA team, who turned a shared goal into a signed agreement and a working plan in a matter of months.”

The focus of the MOU is to unite chiropractors and to advocate for updated Medicare coverage via H.R. 539, and S. 06 in the U.S. Senate, the Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act of 2025.

Dr. Joe Betz

Dr. Joe Betz, ICA President, is optimistic: “The energy behind this effort is unlike anything I have seen in my career. Chiropractors, patients, and the health freedom movement are aligned on modernizing Medicare, and the ICA will keep pressing until seniors have the same freedom to choose their chiropractor that they have with any other doctor.”

Dr. Kris Anderson

Added ACA President, Dr. Kris Anderson: “The ACA built the foundation for this moment: the bipartisan coalition, the relationships, and the case for modernization. With the entire profession now adding its weight, we have never been better positioned to get this done for our patients."

The organizations are united behind passing the bill and will strengthen it through the formal amendment process with three improvements: defining the covered benefit by each state’s authorized scope of practice, with an express exclusion of drugs, surgery, and obstetrics (which are not routine parts of chiropractic practice and for which the profession is not seeking Medicare coverage); adding Medicare private contracting rights for doctors of chiropractic modeled on the existing physician framework; and including a timely implementation schedule.

These amendments make a good bill better and keep the legislation bipartisan. The immediate goal is for a committee markup this session so the bill can pass in the 119th Congress.

Congress added chiropractic care to Medicare coverage in 1972, but that was limited to the sole service of manipulation of the spine, commonly called an “adjustment.” Other necessary services, including initial assessment and evaluation, are still not covered some five decades later. More than one in three American seniors lives with chronic pain.

For decades, chiropractic services have demonstrably offered less intrusive, meaningful relief for patients. Senior citizens deserve the right to choose preventive chiropractic healthcare, subject to the scope of practice limitations in each state. The states regulate the scope of services chiropractors may legally provide; Medicare is the federal vehicle that provides financial support to patients for some of those services.

Supporting patients in their healthcare decision-making is a foundational goal of the MAHA movement. Millions of patients have found relief over the decades through chiropractic care that often obviates the need for prescription painkillers (risking addiction or overdose) or surgery (threatening medical complications and a long recovery). A 2020 study in the journal Pain Medicine found that patients with spinal pain who received chiropractic care had substantially lower odds of filling an opioid prescription. Prevention is generally less costly than reactive allopathic medicine: it is also often more effective.

America’s senior citizens deserve the option to utilize proven therapies already authorized by the states that address root-causes and do not rely on drugs or surgeries that often fail to relieve suffering. Especially with spinal injuries or strains, surgery should be the last medical recourse: only after milder, less intrusive treatments such as chiropractic care are employed should surgery be contemplated. Many patients will respond positively to lower-risk adjustments, saving the pain, risk, and cost of surgeries.

This is why improved chiropractic care aligns with the policy priorities of the MAHA movement. Prevention is superior to reactive cures. Less intrusive means should be employed before recourse to opioids and scalpels.

To support this initiative, MAHA invites MAHA Report readers to visit MAHA Action’s Legislative Tracker to determine whether their elected representatives support H.R. 539. If not, the website provides a precise message to send along with contact details for each congressperson. Please then follow up with a phone call to the representative’s office by July 15, repeating the petition to cosponsor and support H.R. 539.

As of July 7, 2026, 166 House members cosponsor the bill (96 Republicans and 70 Democrats), along with 15 cosponsors in the Senate.

The nation’s most prominent chiropractic organizations are in agreement that Medicare must be modernized to support improved patient outcomes, and they’re mobilizing behind H.R. 539 to do so. Chiropractors from across the nation will gather in Washington, D.C. from July 19-21 to raise awareness of H.R. 539 and garner legislative and voter support for this law change. What the bill needs now is a committee vote, this session.

America’s senior citizens have been waiting since 1972 for this simple remedy of an outdated system. With the help of the MAHA movement, 2026 can and should be the year Congress finally passes chiropractic Medicare modernization legislation and gives our seniors the care choices they deserve.