After a highly publicized failure to repeal Obamacare in March, Republican leaders have repeatedly said the battle is not over. President Donald Trump continues to push lawmakers to negotiate changes to the 2010 healthcare law, though it’s not clear whether any legislation will have enough support to usurp the Affordable Care Act.
Instead of trying to replace Obamacare with a different version, we should let entrepreneurs play a prominent role in fixing our broken healthcare system.
Politicians have overlooked entrepreneurship as a healthcare solution because of an obvious bias against the market. As healthcare has evolved from a local and distributed service to its current highly centralized form, many people have assumed entrepreneurs and small businesses cannot provide these services. This centralization into huge hospitals and insurance companies is the result of regulations the government has placed on the industry. The enormous threshold to entering the market also means that incumbents don’t face a lot of competition.
But entrepreneurship hasn’t been a part of this discussion, and the stagnant healthcare field is in desperate need of innovation. Surely the brightest, most inventive minds in the world can help modernize this idle industry.
