Healthcare adviser Butler exiting Heritage Foundation for Brookings

Stuart Butler, a noted healthcare scholar and adviser, plans to join the Brookings Institution in September as a senior fellow in its economic studies program.

Effective Sept. 2, Butler goes to Brookings from the Heritage Foundation, where he most recently ran its Center for Policy Innovation. Butler spent 35 years at Heritage, previously serving as its VP for domestic and economic policy studies for close to two decades. In 2005, he participated in the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, traveling the U.S. with other bipartisan budget experts to garner public support for reforming Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

“As a leading scholar on poverty, the budget and entitlements, Stuart complements our roster of experts nicely,” Brookings VP and Director of Economic Studies Ted Gayer said in a release.

In addition to his new role at Brookings, Butler will join the Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit Convergence Center for Policy Resolution as a visiting fellow.

Butler, currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy, is a member of the panel of health advisers to the Congressional Budget Office, the Board on Health Care Services of the Institute of Medicine, and the editorial board of Health Affairs.

Butler is perhaps best-known in Washington for his concept of creating enterprise zones in blighted areas to encourage business development. His move from the Heritage Foundation to the more liberal-leaning Brookings raised some eyebrows inside the Beltway, and was pointed to as a sign of the changing orientation of Heritage from a traditional conservative Republican bent to more of a tea party, ultraconservative worldview.

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