What does it take to make health care work for everyone? In this episode of Policy Punchline, former CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure joins Princeton students Alice McCarthy ’27 and Aiko Offner ’27 to reflect on her years leading the agency that runs Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and HealthCare.gov for more than 160 million Americans.
We explore how the U.S. achieved historic coverage gains under the Affordable Care Act and why maintaining that progress has proved so fragile. Brooks-LaSure reflects on the constant tension between innovation and cost control, the bureaucratic frictions that still leave millions without care, and the deeper question of who should bear responsibility for the social conditions that shape health. She offers a frank look at the limits of reform in a system constrained by politics, paperwork, and inequity, before turning to America’s maternal health crisis and her drive to embed equity at the core of CMS policy amid efforts to roll back years of progress.
This interview, conducted by Princeton students Alice McCarthy ’27 and Aiko Offner ’27, is part of the Policy Punchline podcast series. Supported by Princeton’s Julius Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance, the series aims to foster dialogue on critical public-policy issues, connecting listeners with leading experts from around the world.
Join us as Chiquita Brooks-LaSure offers a rare inside look at how America’s health-care system really works and what it would take to make it fairer, simpler, and more humane.
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What does it take to make health care work for everyone? In this episode of Policy Punchline, former CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure joins Princeton students Alice McCarthy ’27 and Aiko Offner ’27 to reflect on her years leading the agency that runs Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and HealthCare.gov for more than 160 million Americans.
We explore how the U.S. achieved historic coverage gains under the Affordable Care Act and why maintaining that progress has proved so fragile. Brooks-LaSure reflects on the constant tension between innovation and cost control, the bureaucratic frictions that still leave millions without care, and the deeper question of who should bear responsibility for the social conditions that shape health. She offers a frank look at the limits of reform in a system constrained by politics, paperwork, and inequity, before turning to America’s maternal health crisis and her drive to embed equity at the core of CMS policy amid efforts to roll back years of progress.
This interview, conducted by Princeton students Alice McCarthy ’27 and Aiko Offner ’27, is part of the Policy Punchline podcast series. Supported by Princeton’s Julius Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance, the series aims to foster dialogue on critical public-policy issues, connecting listeners with leading experts from around the world.
Join us as Chiquita Brooks-LaSure offers a rare inside look at how America’s health-care system really works and what it would take to make it fairer, simpler, and more humane.
Daron Acemoglu: The Past and Future of Innovation in our Economy
Policy Punchline
46 minutes 23 seconds
1 year ago
Daron Acemoglu: The Past and Future of Innovation in our Economy
In this episode of Policy Punchline, renown MIT economist Daron Acemoglu takes us through the tumultuous and fascinating history of new technologies and how they have reshaped the societies we live in. He takes us back to the pre-Industrial era, showing that as new technological systems of agriculture changed, exploitative economic systems did not. He busts common myths about the nature of economic growth in the Industrial Age, presenting a darker and more nuanced look at that explosion of economic development. He argues that the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s had a real cost for employment outcomes — not enough new jobs were generated to match the jobs that were replaced by this innovation.
Looking back, he proposes that technology can either complement the value of labor, generating new tasks associated with them, or can displace existing workers by performing the same tasks they did. In many ways, the effect of technology one way or another is not inevitable — it is a policy decision up to us. Looking forward, he asks us to take lessons from the past to utilize AI most equitably, ensuring it augments rather than replaces us. From blue collar jobs in the U.S., labor-intensive tasks performed in the developing world to consulting and software engineering fields, the future of our work lies in our hands. In the era of Artificial Intelligence, Professor Acemoglu brings us the wisdom of economic history, a bold new paradigm for assessing technological change, and a lifetime of expertise, to help us make sense of this brave new world.
Policy Punchline
What does it take to make health care work for everyone? In this episode of Policy Punchline, former CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure joins Princeton students Alice McCarthy ’27 and Aiko Offner ’27 to reflect on her years leading the agency that runs Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and HealthCare.gov for more than 160 million Americans.
We explore how the U.S. achieved historic coverage gains under the Affordable Care Act and why maintaining that progress has proved so fragile. Brooks-LaSure reflects on the constant tension between innovation and cost control, the bureaucratic frictions that still leave millions without care, and the deeper question of who should bear responsibility for the social conditions that shape health. She offers a frank look at the limits of reform in a system constrained by politics, paperwork, and inequity, before turning to America’s maternal health crisis and her drive to embed equity at the core of CMS policy amid efforts to roll back years of progress.
This interview, conducted by Princeton students Alice McCarthy ’27 and Aiko Offner ’27, is part of the Policy Punchline podcast series. Supported by Princeton’s Julius Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance, the series aims to foster dialogue on critical public-policy issues, connecting listeners with leading experts from around the world.
Join us as Chiquita Brooks-LaSure offers a rare inside look at how America’s health-care system really works and what it would take to make it fairer, simpler, and more humane.
