ABSTRACT
The transformative mission of portions of the Affordable Care Act was more significant for the future of the integrative health movement than these specific inclusionary clauses and sections. The moment for inclusion of the integrative practices was also a time in which the broader medical industry was facing a significant reckoning about its own goals. In the most developed nations of North America and Europe, the movement for integrative health and medicine is on the rise. During a 1979 Congressional Briefing that Clement Bezold's group regularly supplied on the future of medicine, Bezold—who 20 years later would become a player in the integrative health and medicine movement—put his finger on this pulse. Bezold told the assembled elected officials and their staff members that there was a trend taking shape. For many, the choice of a whole-person-focused alternative practitioner was effectively, for their personal health, a choice in microcosm of these movements in the macrocosm of medicine.
