Colorado DC to run for Congress
Currently, 19 members of the US Congress are medical doctors yet, despite the fact that there are more than 65,000 chiropractors in this country, not one of them serves in the US Senate or House of Representatives.
That may change soon. Colorado’s Perry Haney, who has earned both his DC and MD degrees, is running for Congress in the 6th Congressional District (a suburban district east and south of Denver).
A lifelong Coloradoan who’s experienced working for Fortune 500 companies, Dr. Haney says that he “can’t sit on the sidelines any longer while this nonsense in Washington continues.”
Perry’s background has intrigued many in Colorado and around the country. The son of a bean farmer and a machinist, he was born in one of Colorado’s poorest areas, La Junta. As a child, his family moved from job to job in their trailer. His parents worked their way into the middle class, and Perry took backbreaking jobs including trucker on the graveyard shift to pay his way through Palmer University, where he embraced the philosophy as well as the science of chiropractic.
“Chiropractic is responsible for saving my life as an infant,” he explains. “A forceps delivery resulted in a subluxation that caused my delivering MD to deem me unresponsive to medical intervention and essentially give up further treatment. My parents took me to their chiropractor and after one life saving adjustment I was completely healthy. I owe my life to chiropractic.”
For more than a decade, Haney had a successful chiropractic practice but sought additional education and attended medical school at the University of Colorado, ultimately adding MD to his credentials. He describes his practice as a “minimally invasive spine procedure practice, imaging and surgery center.”
If elected, Haney will be the first chiropractor to serve in Congress. He pledges to fight to make sure that chiropractic is recognized as an integral part of the health care delivery system.
“I am a spine doctor who has the background and more importantly the backbone to stand up for you and your patients,” he tells fellow DCs. “Now more than ever, chiropractic needs not just a friend but a champion in Congress.”
Haney is frequently asked why chiropractors should support a candidate running for Congress when they don’t even live in his district, or in the state for that matter. His answer points to history and influence.
“This is much less about me as a candidate than it is as about lifting up chiropractic as a serious political force,” he explains. “If chiropractors and their patients unite their support around this campaign, patients will be able to freely access chiropractic care and it will open up new ways for chiropractors to serve those patients.”
Haney is not politically naïve.
“Chiropractors work under some of the most difficult and discriminatory circumstances I’ve seen in any profession,” he acknowledges. “These are the result of not having direct representation in Washington. Medical specialties all have their go-to person in Congress, but chiropractic only seems to have part-time friends. I’ll be that tireless advocate in the closed door legislative meetings, making sure chiropractic is protected and given equal priority with medicine,” he states.
There are a number of ways chiropractors can support Haney’s bid for Congressional office. One is to sign up for e-mail updates at SendAChiropractorToCongress.com.
The other is to make a financial donation.
“If every chiropractor and chiropractic patient in the country donated $10 or $20 online to this campaign, it would show Washington that chiropractic is a force to be reckoned with,” says Haney. “If we do this together, I doubt you would see any more legislation at the state or national level that hurts patient access to chiropractic.”