The Nevada Merger Experiment: How Jason Jaeger Engineered a State-Sanctioned Merger and Called It a Model for the ACA & ICA
Originally published: 2025-10-17
The “No Merger” Denial Doesn’t Hold Up
International Chiropractors Association President Joe Betz DC is now attempting to calm ICA members who are witnessing a historic mass resignation of senior leadership and members by redirecting attention away from the election fraud, governance crisis and financial mismanagement at the heart of the exodus by focusing on ACA/ICA merger concerns.
Betz is insisting that “merger” has never been discussed inside the organization. On October 16, 2025, he wrote:
“I have served on the ICA Representative Assembly or the ICA Board for over 20 years, and the topic of merger has never been discussed by anyone, other than to stress that we would never consider it.” Joe Betz DC
That statement is provably false.
Just three months ago, ICA Secretary/Board Member and NBCE Vice President Dr. Jason Jaeger stood before the Chiropractic Physicians’ Board of Nevada and declared on the record that he hoped the ACA and ICA would “pay attention” to Nevada’s state-level merger as a model for the national profession. Jaeger wasn’t freelancing, he was speaking from within the same inner circle that Betz now represents.
A Merger That Wasn’t Voluntary
At the July 10, 2025 meeting of the Chiropractic Physicians’ Board of Nevada (CPBN), Dr. Marcia Tinberg took the microphone with a smile and said something that should have set off alarms:
“We are definitely moving forward to do what we promised the Chiropractic Physicians’ Board that we would do.”
That “promise” was to merge the two private professional associations in the state—the Nevada Chiropractic Association (NCA) and the Nevada Chiropractic Council (NCC), into a single organization.
A private merger directed by a public board.
And sitting at the center of it all was Dr. Jason Jaeger, Vice President of the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners (NBCE), Secretary-Treasurer of the CPBN, and the Secretary and Director of the International Chiropractors Association (ICA).
Within seconds of Tinberg’s statement, Jaeger jumped in, claiming credit and framing the merger as a national example:
“I’d like the entire country to pay attention to these minutes and be aware that what Nevada has done as a leader in the United States… is incredible. I hope that the ACA and the ICA pay attention to what these two organizations have done.”
Turning “One Voice” into a Directive
According to CPBN meeting records going back to 2023, Jaeger had been pushing the two associations to “work together under one voice.” Over time, “work together” turned into “unify,” and by 2024, unification had become an expectation of the regulatory board itself.
Both the NCA and NCC began providing regular progress reports to the Board under an agenda item titled Association Updates. Each report was met with praise from Jaeger and Executive Director Julie Strandberg.
By early 2025, Tinberg and NCC President Dr. Teddy Sims had filed merger documents under the NCA name. The July meeting served as the public announcement that the deed was done, and that it had been done “for the Board.”
A “Model” for National Consolidation
Jaeger didn’t stop at congratulating the Nevada groups. He made the merger part of a larger campaign:
“I hope that the national associations like the ACA and the ICA pay attention.”
That single line connects Nevada’s merger to the long-running effort to consolidate the profession under the NBCE, FCLB, and CCE cartel network. Jaeger’s message to the national associations was clear: This is how it’s done. The regulator leads, the associations follow, and dissenting voices disappear.
At the same meeting, the Board celebrated passage of AB 513, Jaeger’s own legislative project that tightened NBCE’s control over licensure testing. The two events, the merger and the bill, were presented as twin victories.
From Regulator to Political Broker
By orchestrating a merger of independent associations while serving as a state regulator and a national testing executive, Jaeger erased every ethical boundary that separates governance from lobbying.
The newly merged NCA now speaks with the “one voice” the Board demanded, leaving no organized representation for chiropractors who practice in a vitalistic, subluxation-centered model.
That is not unity; it is regulatory capture.
“We are definitely moving forward to do what we promised the Board we would do.”
— Dr. Marcia Tinberg, July 10 2025“I’d like the entire country to pay attention to these minutes.”
— Dr. Jason Jaeger
These are not statements of collaboration; they are confessions of control.
Nevada as the Cartel’s Prototype
In the span of one legislative session:
The CPBN passed its own bill (AB 513) reinforcing NBCE’s dominance.
The Board’s lobbyist, paid with public funds, worked side by side with Jaeger and Strandberg on the legislation.
The two state associations, under Board pressure, merged into one organization “as promised.”
Nevada now functions as a pilot state for the Chiropractic Cartel’s preferred structure:
one board, one lobbyist, one association, one voice, all managed by the same small circle of insiders.
Why It Matters
The rhetoric of “unity” hides a system of control. When a sitting regulator publicly celebrates directing the merger of the very groups that are supposed to hold the Board accountable, the profession loses its independence.
When the same official sits on the NBCE, the ICA, and a state licensing board, the entire system becomes self-referential, answerable only to itself.
Nevada’s experiment is being sold as progress. In truth, it’s the perfect case study in how a cartel consolidates power, one board, one association, one ideology at a time.
“They merged the associations under the same model the Cartel uses nationally, regulatory capture masquerading as unity.”
