Bill Gurley—Bill Gurley publicly alleged regulatory capture benefiting Epic Systems through the 2009 HITECH Act's EHR incentive program
In a widely-circulated September 2023 All-In Summit presentation titled '2,851 Miles,' Benchmark general partner Bill Gurley laid out a case that the 2009 HITECH Act - a $38 billion federal program paying doctors up to $44,000 plus a further $17,000 'meaningful use' bonus to adopt electronic health record (EHR) software - was structured to disproportionately benefit Epic Systems. He noted Epic CEO Judith Faulkner was the sole corporate representative on Obama's Health IT Policy Committee and a major Obama donor, and alleged that federal compliance thresholds were set to match Epic's existing feature set while the Department of Justice levied large fines ($155M, $57M, and $145M) against Epic's smaller competitors. Gurley presented this as a case study in how incumbents can capture health-tech regulation to entrench market position.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regulatory Capture | -against | primary | +1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.545 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.55)
Evidence (1 signal)
Gurley's '2,851 Miles' talk alleges HITECH Act was structured to favor Epic Systems
Transcript and slides from Gurley's September 2023 All-In Summit presentation detailing his regulatory-capture allegations regarding Epic Systems and the HITECH Act EHR incentive program.