James C. Capretta

James C. Capretta is a senior fellow and holds the Milton Friedman Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies health care, entitlement programs, and fiscal trends in advanced economies.

Concurrently, Mr. Capretta serves as a senior adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center and, since 2011, as a member of the advisory board of the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

He spent more than 16 years in public service before joining AEI. As an associate director at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004, he was responsible for all health care, Social Security, welfare, and labor and education issues. Earlier, he served as a senior analyst at the US Senate Budget Committee and the US House Committee on Ways and Means. Before joining AEI full-time, Mr. Capretta was affiliated with other national think tanks.

Mr. Capretta is the author of US Health Policy and Market Reforms: An Introduction (AEI Press, 2022) and several book chapters, including “Fiscal Rules for Social Security and Medicare: Would Accrual Accounting Help?” in Public Debt Sustainability: International Perspectives (Lexington Books, 2022) and, with Joseph Antos, “The Road Not Taken” in The Trillion Dollar Revolution (Public Affairs, 2020).

Mr. Capretta, a contributor to RealClearPolicy, has testified before Congress and published many essays and reports since leaving government service in 2004. He earned an MA in public policy studies from Duke University and a BA in government from the University of Notre Dame.