Within the chiropractic community, Strom Thurmond will be remembered primarily as the member of Congress who most championed making chiropractic care available to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces. An avid believer in exercise, proper diet, and chiropractic care, Thurmond began working with the ACA in the early 1990s on what became a more-than-10-year collaboration with the association, aimed at expanding access to chiropractic care in federal health care programs.
In 1993, while serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Thurmond successfully steered legislation through Congress that granted the secretary of defense the authority to commission DCs as officers in the U.S. military. When the Department of Defense (DoD) ignored the authorizing legislation, Thurmond worked with the ACA to implement a pilot program in 1995 (P.L. 103-337) requiring the DoD to test the "feasibility and advisability" of making chiropractic care available within the DoD health care system.
Under the legislation Sen. Thurmond authored, chiropractic care initially was made available at 10 test sites throughout the nation. When the DoD bureacracy failed to collect the full range of data needed to evaluate the pilot program appropriately, Thurmond again worked with the ACA to pass additional legislation in 1997 (PL 105-85) extending the life of the pilot program and expanded the pilot program to include three additional test sites, including Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital, both situated in the Washington, D.C. area. Expansion of the sites to include Bethesda Naval Hospital helped make additional chiropractic history.
Through expansion of the pilot program, the DoD was forced to make chiropractic care available for the first time to members of Congress through the Office of the Attending Physician in the U.S. Capitol, and the office staffed by the U.S. Navy out of Bethesda Naval Hospital. When the pilot program was completed in 2000, Thurmond helped enact permanent legislation (PL 106-398) that made chiropractic care available to all uniformed personnel within the U.S. military, to be phased in over a five-year period. Most recently, the Senate Armed Services Committee instructed the DoD, in its version of the FY2004 Defense Authorization Bill, to "accelerate" the implementation of Thurmond's original legislation that made the chiropractic care benefit permanent.
Sen. Thurmond's groundbreaking work on DoD issues is credited with helping persuade Congress to implement similar legislation requiring that chiropractic care be made available to America's veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) is now in the process of implementing legislation Thurmond helped pass before he retired from the Senate, requiring the establishment of a chiropractic benefit within the DVA.
"Thurmond was in the active duty military and he was a veteran. He was a great believer in chiropractic care, and he knew how beneficial it would be to have chiropractic care available to our men and women in uniform and to our veterans," said Daryl Wills, ACA president. "His friendship and leadership will never be forgotten by a very grateful chiropractic profession."
In addition to its relationship with Sen. Thurmond, the ACA built strong ties to his staff over the years. Dennis Shedd, former chief of staff to Thurmond, served as a legislative advisor to the ACA in the early 1990s. Shedd left the ACA when he was nominated by Thurmond to serve as a U.S. District Court judge. Shedd was recently named by President George W. Bush to sit on the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals. R. Duke Short, Thurmond's last chief of staff and former staff director of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, has long maintained ties to the ACA. Today, Short serves as a legislative consultant and lobbyist to the ACA, where he helps oversee defense- and veterans-related issues.
Rick Miller, ACA consultant