Bob Graboyes: From Fortress to Frontier in American Healthcare

According to our guest, American health care is stuck in a fortress mentality that stifles innovation, constrains medical advances, and yields low quality care. That fortress was erected more than one hundred years ago but, in many ways, is being circumvented by creative actors who are seizing opportunities to make changes outside of the political process.

Bob Graboyes is Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He holds a PhD in Economics from Columbia University, and has held a number of academic positions in higher education in Virginia. He is the author of “Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care,” a booklet which offers many examples of individuals adopting a risk-tolerant frontier attitude to compete with insiders and pave the way to the future without having to rely on political reform. Prior to focusing his career on healthcare, Bob Graboyes was regional economist and director of education at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.