By SCOTT JORGENSEN
SALEM, Ore.- Sections of a comprehensive health care reform bill are rubbing licensed massage therapists the wrong way.
During its Wednesday meeting, the Senate Health Care, Human Services and Rural Health Policy Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 1509.
A portion of SB 1509 establishes criteria for the licensing of massage therapy facilities. Kate Coffey, executive director of the Oregon Board of Massage Therapists, said the board has received complaints about operations in Southern Oregon, Portland and Washington County but presently lacks the statutory authority to resolve them.
Jim DeWeese, a franchisee for the Massage Envy chain of establishments, testified against the bill.
DeWeese said that permitting for those kinds of businesses is typically done at the local level, but SB 1509 would turn such functions over to the state. He said that would result in an “inefficient bureaucracy” imposing “undue restrictions” on “respectable establishments.”
Particularly onerous to DeWeese was a provision in the law regarding requirements for the ownership structures of such businesses.
Most licensed massage therapists don’t own their businesses and prefer to be employees, DeWeese said. Likewise, he added, most people who own massage businesses aren’t licensed massage therapists.
Characterizing the legislation as “direct assaults” on licensed massage therapists, DeWeese predicted that passage of SB 1509 in its current form would lead to job losses and business closures.
Rose Jade, a licensed massage therapist from Newport, said she opposes SB 1509. Jade said none of her professional colleagues were aware that such legislation was being proposed and suggested that a work group be formed and an alternative bill offered for consideration in the 2013 session.
Dan Jarman spoke on behalf of the Northwest Career Colleges Federation and said that SB 1509 would prevent the kinds of public clinics that enable massage therapy students the hands-on experience required to obtain their licenses.
Jarman said the portion of the bill dealing with the ownership requirements of such facilities would “more or less” close those clinics down.
Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson, D-Gresham, chair of the committee, said she wanted to consult with fellow committee member Sen. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, about the bill. Bates was absent from the meeting.
Anderson agreed to carry SB 1509 over to the committee’s Friday meeting.
The committee did, however, advance several other bills.
Sen. Chip Shields, D-Portland, moved to approve amendments to SB 1503, the Influenza Prevention and Education Act. That motion was approved unanimously.
Shields moved to bring the bill to the Senate floor with a do-pass recommendation. The motion initially passed unanimously, with Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, voting in place of Bates. However, Sen. Frank Morse, R-Albany, was absent for the first vote. Committee members voted unanimously to suspend the rules so Morse could vote on the bill.
Morse voted against it, stating he thought an alternate version of the bill offered by a group representing hospitals was better. SB 1503 will be carried on the Senate floor by Anderson.
Committee members voted unanimously to approve a pair of motions by Shields to amend SB 1577, which requires state agencies to participate in the Oregon Prescription Drug Program subject to exceptions. They also voted unanimously to advance the bill with a do-pass recommendation to the Senate floor, but it first must be approved by the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee.
Unanimous approval was also given to SB 1504, which would exempt insurers from the requirement to send notice of cancellation of a health benefit plan if the cancellation was due to nonpayment of premium. Shields will carry the bill on the Senate floor.
SB 1506, which would create the pilot Central Oregon Psychiatric Prescribing Program, will be carried over to Feb. 10.
