Last month’s campaign fundraising totals show Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Crist has strong backing from Florida chiropractors. The support for Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s likely challenger comes after Scott signed into law controversial car insurance reforms two years ago.
Scott supported the revamp of Florida’s no-fault auto insurance system that chiropractors say left them with lower status among medical professionals and less income in their pockets.
“Chiropractic was treated negatively in those changes," says Florida Chiropractic Association Governmental Affairs Director Jack Hebert. He says the recent reforms took away chiropractors’ ability to diagnose car-accident injuries and limited the amount they can be reimbursed for car-accident treatment to a quarter of what they could previously earn.
“And that’s caused some of our members to have pause in the campaign, and I suspect that they’re voting with their checkbook," he says.
Hebert says the association isn't taking an official position on the governor's race. But in April alone, individual chiropractors contributed at least $112,000 to Crist’s campaign. That’s roughly 12 percent of his fundraising haul for the month.
