This post highlights the findings of a paper released today by the Clayton Christensen Institute, “Seize the ACA: The Innovator’s Guide to the Affordable Care Act.”
Since its passage in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been analyzed by experts from nearly every political, economic, and health policy angle possible. Yet in the noisy debate about whether the legislation is good or bad and whether to implement or repeal it, we think there’s something missing: a rigorous but practical discussion of the innovation opportunities created by the legislation and the barriers to innovation it imposes.
To facilitate that goal, we analyzed the ACA through the lens of the theory of disruptive innovation. First articulated by Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen, disruptive innovation theory explains how innovations that decrease cost and increase accessibility transform entire industries.
As existing products increase in performance and begin to exceed customer needs (think of next year’s biggest Cadillac model), low-cost, lower-performance alternatives created by new entrants take root in the low end of the market (think of next year’s smallest Kia model).
These new products are initially inferior in comparison to established products, but they become better and better until they “disrupt” and eventually topple larger incumbent competitors.
So how does the ACA affect the pace of disruptive innovation in health care? What opportunities does it create for innovators? What barriers does it inadvertently erect? Here are a few thoughts from our recent paper.
