CHIBE Q&A with Avik Roy

Learn more about one of CHIBE’s newest external advisory board members Avik Roy, who serves as president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a think tank “improving the lives of Americans on the bottom half of the economic ladder using freedom, innovation, and pluralism.”

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on a lot of things. Probably the most important are that I’m transitioning my role as CEO of FREOPP to a successor, and moving on to serve as Chairman of the FREOPP board.

I’ve taken on a new role as president and CEO of the National Institute for Health Care Management, which supports health services researchers and journalists who help us improve the affordability and quality of U.S. health care.

Also, I’ll be spending some time this summer working on a book, and I’m producing a documentary about the federal debt. I’m very focused on trying to help solve what I believe is the most important challenge of our time: reforming health care so that we can avert the fiscal apocalypse that will hit the U.S., and likely the world, within the next 20 years.

What are you most proud of in your career?

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that, to be honest. I’m proud of what the FREOPP team has done to have an impact on so many important public policy debates, especially by helping tens of millions of kids regain in-person learning during the pandemic. For me personally, the things I’ve done to help build institutions that have a lasting impact are probably the things I’m most proud of. But I feel like I am far from having accomplished what I want and need to accomplish.

You are president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank, and you’re a senior advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center. What advice do you have for health care organizations seeking to be bipartisan?

Being bipartisan isn’t that hard, especially if your mission and core principles can be appealing to people in both parties. Our mission at FREOPP is to improve the lives of Americans on the bottom half of the ladder using free enterprise, individual liberty, technological innovation, and pluralism. We’ve found that some of our ideas are more embraced by Republicans, and some more by Democrats, and some by both in varying proportions. So much of it is just being the kind of person who doesn’t write others off because of the labels next to their names.

Look for opportunities to find common ground, and look for the good in people. Most people who go into public service and public policy do so for idealistic reasons. Try to see the world from the perspective of people who disagree with you. What are the strongest arguments for their points of view?

What interests you about CHIBE? What do you think CHIBE should focus on in the next 5-10 years?

At FREOPP, we do a lot of work studying health care systems around the world, through our World Index of Healthcare Innovation project. What we’ve found is that those systems that are wise about health incentives and behavioral economics are by far the most successful. We need CHIBE to increase the body of wisdom we can use to make U.S. health care fiscally and economically sustainable.