Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care

Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care

Americaâ€™s health care policy debate has long been framed as Left versus Right, Democrat versus Republican, federal versus state, and public versus private. This paper offers an alternative demarcation: Fortress versus Frontier.
Health care is mostly in the Fortress, meaning that public policy focuses on protecting patients from risks and providers from competitors. Information technology (IT) is mostly on the Frontier, meaning that all Americansâ€”even industry outsiders like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerbergâ€”have been free to experiment and innovate with computers, telecommunications, and the Internet despite enormous risks to personal finances, privacy, safety, health, and well-being. The Fortress discourages creative destruction and disruptive innovation, and the Frontier tolerates both. Health care provision and innovation generally require official sanction; meanwhile, costs have risen. IT innovators have not needed permission to create and have thus been able to tap into serendipitous genius; the result has been plummeting costs.
Written by health care economist Robert F. Graboyes, this paper suggests some potential policy actions to shift health care from Fortress to Frontierâ€”and toward a goal of producing better health for more people at lower cost on a continuous basis.

About the Author

Robert F. Graboyes is a senior research fellow for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He specializes in the economics of health care and teaches in masterâ€™s and doctoral programs at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia. He has also taught at George Mason University, the George Washington University, and the University of Richmond. Previously, he was a sub-Saharan Africa economist at Chase Manhattan Bank and, in that capacity, traveled extensively in Africa and Europe. He has also served as a regional economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and twice visited the Republic of Kazakhstan as a health care scholar. Graboyes earned his PhD in economics from Columbia University.
Country USA
Manufacturer Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-07-14
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-07-14
Format	Kindle eBook

Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care

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