Writing Public Policy Proposals: A Seminar with Henry Aaron and Stuart Butler
On Tuesday, February 24th, Henry Aaron from the Brookings Institute and Stuart Butler from the Heritage Foundation came to advise students on how to write effective public policy proposals as part of the Wharton Politics and Business Association’s lecture series on health care. Henry Aaron, a senior fellow at the Brookings institute, is a noted expert on health care cost, financing, rationing, Medicaid, Medicare, and social security, among many other areas. Stuart Butler is the Vice President of Domestic and Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundations and an expert on health care and social security.
To kick off the seminar, Stuart Butler stressed the importance of business students debating and thinking about health care. He maintained that because economics and businesses are such a vital component of health care, people knowledgeable in economics and the perspectives of businesses are well positioned to offer valuable insights in the health care debate.
Moving on to individual public policy proposals, Henry Aaron gave more specific comments to the finalists in this year’s Policy Cup. He stressed that all the proposals need to focus more on implementation (how to do what they’re proposing to do). He encouraged participants to “get down in the details” and support their proposals with evidence.
The policy experts then fielded questions from the audience. One student asked whether the fact that European countries have cheaper healthcare suggests that the public sector rather than the private sector is more effective in providing healthcare. Stuart Butler responded by saying that the private sector will always respond to incentives, and it is the government’s responsibility to create incentives such that the result in the market is one that we desire. Thus, he maintained, the private sector with appropriate government regulation is able to provide effective health care services.
Related posts:
- Seminar: “Revising Policy Proposals”
- Aaron Hurst Visits the Wharton School
- Barriers to Health Care Access in Philadelphia By Marla Gold, Dean, Drexel School of Public Health
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