The bottom line is that Americans associate medical care with health insurance. Only the affluent or the extremely health conscious are willing to pay cash for services. There is a huge demand for natural/holistic health but NDs are not benefiting from it much. Integrative MDs, health food stores and authors are benefiting. Our field is totally unorganized and there are not enough of us to have much poitical impact.
I think that our field should hire the people from the Chiropractic and Accupuncture fields who got them nationally licensed to do the same for us.