Mission & History
Mission
The Galen Institute is a non-profit research organization devoted exclusively to health policy. We work to promote a more informed public debate over ideas that advance individual freedom, consumer choice, and competition in the health sector.
The Galen Institute believes that: Consumers and their physicians should have authority and responsibility over their own health care decisions. A consumer-driven market will lower costs, promote innovation, expand choice, and increase access to better medical care. The vibrant free market will encourage research and innovation and provide better access to new medical technologies. Updating outmoded tax policy will facilitate greater access to more affordable health insurance.
History
The Galen Institute was founded by Grace-Marie Turner (then, Arnett) in 1995 to promote a conversation over free-market ideas in the health sector. Our first major conference was held on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in March of 1996, and was entitled “A Fresh Approach to Health Care Reform.” Participants in the Health Policy Consensus Group presented papers describing a new vision in which consumers, rather than bureaucracies, would be in charge of decisions about their health care and health insurance arrangements. This event was a turning point in showing a new direction for the health care debate after years of focus on the Clinton vision of centralized, government-control.
The papers presented at the conference were developed into chapters and later were published in Empowering Health Care Consumers through Tax Reform, the peer-reviewed volume published by the University of Michigan Press.
The Galen Institute continues to facilitate an active policy conversation among participants in the Health Policy Consensus Group.
In addition, the institute has published a number of its own landmark papers in its short history. One of the first was titled “Uninsured Rates Rise Dramatically in States With Strictest Health Insurance Regulations.” It provided solid evidence to state legislators that their infatuation with state health insurance regulations and coverage mandates was actually harming their citizens by driving up the cost of health insurance and forcing more and more to become uninsured.
Our work continues to focus on the uninsured and new ways to provide coverage through private health insurance. We work to promote refundable tax credits for the uninsured, to make insurance markets friendlier to purchasers, and to offer new options to consumers, such as Health Savings Accounts.
We also provide ideas to inject consumer-power and market competition into public programs. Our idea for a Prescription Drug Security Card for a Medicare prescription drug benefit was widely acknowledged as providing the central idea for the Temporary Drug Discount Card. This will provide help to millions of low-income seniors in purchasing drugs and will provide all seniors a way to obtain privately-negotiated discounts on their prescription drugs. We also are working to offer new ideas to improve the Medicaid program to better serve low-income citizens.
In 2003, we established our Center for Consumer Driven Health Care, and our organization is now the go-to source for information on this new revolution in health care financing and delivery. Through papers, conferences, speeches, media interviews, commentary articles, and other communications vehicles, we are working to educate the public about new opportunities to gain control over their health spending.
The Galen Institute has been and remains on the cutting edge in providing ideas and studies to educate the public, opinion leaders, and legislators about the dangers of further government-control over our health sector and the benefits of putting consumers in charge of making decisions about the health coverage that is best for them and their families.