Georgetown University School of Medicine: Med-Dent Building LA-2

Dr. Robert F. Graboyes

Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Islands of Innovation

The ACA (Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare) is a destructive law whose weaknesses are well-known. But pre-ACA health care was loaded with damaging laws, regulations, and customs—many of them supported by the same people who fiercely oppose the ACA. For nearly five years, ACA opponents have issued futile promises to repeal and replace the ACA—but their proposals have been hollow and remain politically undeliverable.

Both ACA and pre-ACA institutions are similarly fearful of risks and deferential to insiders, and the repeal-and-replace proposals would do little to alleviate these problems. Fortunately, medicine is about to be slammed by a slew of new technologies that will radically change health care. These changes offer the opportunity to pursue a strategy akin to America’s Pacific Theater strategy in World War II—reform health care island by island by island, taking down hundreds of ACA and pre-ACA obstacles to better health. This talk will cover how this island-hopping strategy can get us past the tedious debate between Obamacare and Repeal-and-Replace.