Last Wednesday a public hearing was held in the Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee on my bill, LB 958. LB 958 is a very short bill. It is short because the only thing it does is expand the definition of a massage therapy establishment to include vehicles or mobile units.

The idea for this bill came to me from Mrs. Jean Thunker, a constituent of mine who works as a massage therapist in Paxton, Nebraska. Mrs. Thunker also made the long trip to Lincoln to testify at the public hearing on the bill. Massage therapists need mobile units because their clients oftentimes cannot travel long distances in an automobile to get to a brick and mortar massage therapy establishment. LB 958 would allow massage therapists to take their massage therapy clinics to where their clients live, work, study and play.

The hearing on LB 958 went very well. Only one person testified against the bill. The criticism against LB 958 is that the bill does not provide any stipulations about what kinds of vehicles could be used for massage therapy or about what kinds of equipment these mobile units should contain. Without any such stipulations, a massage therapist could theoretically use a horse trailer as a mobile unit for massage therapy. However, these kinds of provisions are not necessary in the law because they are usually spelled out in the regulations administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). I intentionally wrote the bill vague, because I saw it as an opportunity to remove these kinds of needless government regulations from our lives.

LB 958 will follow a different kind of pathway towards becoming a law than most ordinary bills. LB 958 will get absorbed into a larger consolidation bill currently being written by the Legislature’s HHS Committee. The timing on LB 958 was impeccable, because the HHS Committee was already preparing a separate committee bill to provide for mobile units to be used in cosmetology. So, the HHS committee will simply add another section to their larger committee bill to make provisions for mobile units to be used for massage therapy. Because LB 958 will get absorbed into this larger HHS committee bill, it will stand a much better chance of becoming a law.

So, the day is quickly approaching when massage therapists will come to you, instead of you having to travel long and painful distances in a car or on a motorcycle just to get a good massage. Perhaps, the best measure of good health is determined by which a person takes more of, pills or stairs. With the aid of a good massage, the wise person will always choose the stairs.