I was a chubby kid, which brought with it all manner of slights, both real and imagined. My predicament was worsened because I came from an immigrant family, and my father was tormented by unrelenting and untreated bipolar disease. When he was lucid, however, he taught essential lessons that neither he nor I knew at the time would become my life’s cornerstone: don’t trust the professions too much; advance your own cause through limitless learning; and, use exercise — all forms of it — as an irreplaceable lever for personal betterment. My dad may have been out of it more often than not, but he swam, did calisthenics, played tennis, and boxed, and he walked vigorously right up until the end of his life. I saw, I learned, I did (and still do).
Imagine, then, my chagrin at how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) effectively shears away the concept of personal responsibility and mastery of lifelong wellness skills from the pursuit of actual health. It was a huge missed opportunity to teach Americans about what’s first in the line of responsibility for good health.
Instead, the ACA’s philosophical foundation ignores the power that individuals have to impact their personal health trajectory, and it compels Americans to accept lifelong roles as patients in a system that many of them not only don’t want any part of but that they distrust and don’t understand. It is exactly the opposite result that something called “health” reform should have produced.
