This year marks the sixth time that professional licensure bills have been filed in Massachusetts. The bills are exactly the same, word for word and line by line, as S.221 and H.350 filed in 2021 that were sent to study because of a strong opposition from the reiki community.

S.191 and H.282, an act regulating alternative healing therapies, would affect practices such as reiki, Asian bodywork therapy, Reflexology, Feldenkrais Method, Trager Approach, Ayurvedic therapies, Polarity or Polarity Therapy, Structural integration or Rolfing, qigong and Body/Mind Centering. More than 200 modalities would fall under it because of its broad definition of bodywork.

The bills would create a licensing board consisting of three massage therapists, two alternative health practitioners and put Complimentary Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners under the control of the massage industry, our competitors. It would also allow them to create standards for the way the modalities are practiced and taught.

If this bill passes, it will increase the cost of practicing, reduce the number of practitioners, increase the cost to consumers, generate unnecessary barriers with higher fees to practice, increase unemployment and discriminate against low wage earners, people of color and women. The bill would also affect our right to choose an alternative healthcare practitioner.

Having practitioners take additional courses that would not apply to their profession to get a license would be like making a plumber take courses applicable to an electrician. There would also be the application fee of having a teaching program approved by the state at a minimum cost of over $5,000.

Other effects would be CAM providers going out of business and not being able to find a teaching program to learn a new profession.

If these bills pass in Massachusetts, they’ll probably be copied by many states around the country.