Urgent News! A Public Hearing on Massachusetts  S.191/H.282, is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. EST, Monday, July 10th. The bill is an extremely restrictive licensing bill entitled “An Act Regulating Alternative Healing Therapies”.  It will be heard by the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure.

We need your opposition testimony NOW – both written and virtual – to defeat this legislation and protect your access to the complementary and alternative health care you enjoy today! 

You must register by 5pm this Friday, July 7 if you wish to testify at the in-person or virtual hearing. You may submit written testimony any time before the hearing.  Details below

MA S.191/H.282 proposes prohibiting all practitioners who practice alternative healing therapies from practicing unless they are licensed by a newly configured massage and alternative therapy board.  It will also prohibit practitioners from holding themselves out as practicing “alternative healing therapies”.  The bill proposes to repeal the existing Massachusetts licensure exemptions and protection for these practitioners and would negatively impact thousands of practitioner businesses and consumers utilizing their services.   

Services practiced by practitioners that are currently protected in Massachusetts that will lose their protection include, but not be limited to,

Reflexology; the Feldenkrais Method; The Trager Approach; Ayurvedic Therapies, Rolf Structural Integration, Polarity or Polarity Therapy; Polarity Therapy Bodywork; Asian Bodywork Therapy that does not constitute massage as defined in this chapter; Acupressure; Jin Shin Do; Qi Gong; Tui Na; Shiatsu; Body–Mind Centering and Reiki.

Over 200 additional alternative healing therapies will potentially be restricted by this bill.

Take Action Steps:

1. Click here NOW to Email your personal legislators and the committee members to OPPOSE MA S.191/H.282, a restrictive licensing bill, because it hurts alternative healing practitioners and the clients they serve. We have a pre-written letter ready for you to send. We recommend personalizing it if you can. 

2. Click Here to Sign-up to Testify in-person or virtually during the public hearing on Monday, July 10, beginning at 1:00 pm EST.  Persons who wish to testify in-person/virtually, submit written testimony, or both, should complete this form.

Additional instructions for providing testimony may be found Here. 

If providing Virtual testimony you will receive an invitation to the hearing with instructions via email after the deadline closes. Please note that there is a time limit of 3 minutes per person for oral testimony.

Persons who do not have a Google account or do not wish to use the Google form can submit testimony and/or sign up to testify by emailing:
JointCmte-ConsumerProtection@malegislature.gov.

3. Submit Written Testimony Only. Those who plan to submit only written testimony may do so before or after the signup deadline.

           The subject line of your email should be: “Testimony in Opposition to S.191 and H.282, An Act Regulating Alternative Healing Therapies”.

Please submit your written testimony via email to:

jointcmte-consumerprotection@malegislature.gov, john.cronin@masenate.gov, susan.moran@masenate.gov, edward.kennedy@masenate.gov, jacob.oliveira@masenate.gov, bruce.tarr@masenate.gov, walter.timilty@masenate.gov, tackey.chan@mahouse.gov, mary.keefe@mahouse.gov, joan.meschino@mahouse.gov, christopher.worrell@mahouse.gov, dawne.shand@mahouse.gov, kate.donaghue@mahouse.gov, estela.reyes@mahouse.gov, david.leboeuf@mahouse.gov, danillo.sena@mahouse.gov, joseph.mckenna@mahouse.gov, steven.howitt@mahouse.gov

If you have any questions, you may email Marissa Dakin (Marissa.Dakin@mahouse.gov) and Dana Mascari (Dana.Mascari@masenate.gov).

4.   Attend the Public Hearing In-Person: Anyone can attend but you must register by July 7th at 5:00 if you would like to speak before the committee.

Date:  Monday, July 10, 2023
Time: 1:00 p.m. EST
Location:  Gardner Auditorium
The State House
24 Beacon Street
Boston, MA. 02133

5.   Watch the public hearing.  For those who do not plan to testify but want to watch, the hearing may be live-streamed and will be recorded for later viewing on the “Hearings & Events” page of the General Court’s website.

MORE REASONS TO OPPOSE MA S.191/H.282

Under this licensing bill, practitioners practicing gentle alternative therapies would be both unnecessarily regulated and require licensing by the government.  The bills would add alternative healing therapies to the jurisdiction of the Massage Therapy Board.  An Advisory Council of practitioners from various vocations would advise the Massage Board, but the Board would be given the authority to adopt rules and regulations governing the licensure of all alternative healing therapists. This would include demonstration of competency and the approval and operation of alternative therapy training and certification programs and establishing standards of professional and ethical conduct for alternative healing therapies, and continuing education. Many of the spiritual and holistic practices affected by the proposed bills are ethnic minority or multicultural traditions offered by sole practitioners. New, unnecessary regulatory burdens would force closures, adversely impacting teaching masters, students, and consumers alike.  Many of these are women. Read the bill here.  

Also, under the restrictive licensing bill, practices and the use of titles would be prohibited and banned from the public domain.  A person would not be able to hold themselves out to others as an alternative healing therapist or practice any alternative healing therapy unless the person holds a valid state license.  Alternative therapy is a common phrase well used in the English language and should always remain in the public domain and not be restricted by an exclusive group of people.

Requirement that instructional programs be licensed by the state would also prevent many practices from being taught due to the bureaucratic process and high fees. This will put countless practitioners out of business, hurt families, increase jobless claims, and cause a loss of educational programs with restriction of trade and monopolization of health care offerings by state endorsed, dominant medicalized professions.

There is no constitutional basis for regulating vocations that do not pose a risk of harm to the public. Reducing the prevalence of unnecessary and overly broad occupational licensing that hurts our economy, workers, small businesses and consumers, and the health and wellness of our communities, is a goal of many governments, and Massachusetts should join in defeating these licensing bills. 

Massachusetts needs a broad safe harbor law similar to laws in eleven other states that will protect complementary and alternative practitioners in a more feasible and practical manner that is good for the consumers and practitioners, and that gives clear guidance to government.

Thanks in advance for your help OPPOSING MA S.191/H.282!  
Together we can protect our alternative healing practitioner