June 3, 2025 11:35AM # Grace-Marie Turner, RIP By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE Listen to this article Generated with [ ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) AI technology. Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech) AudioNative Player... [Grace-Marie Turner](https://galen.org/about/scholars-and-staff/) was such a powerful and constant force in the free-market health care movement, it’s hard to imagine it without her. She was at [the 1974 hotel-bar meeting](https://galen.org/2023/birth-of-the-laffer-curve/) where Arthur Laffer explained “[the Laffer curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve)” to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Cheney. In 1993, she founded the [Health Policy Consensus Group](https://galen.org/projects/consensus-group/), a decades-long, often grueling project to find common ground among free-market health policy wonks, a task that perhaps only Grace-Marie could execute. (Among her sly devices: baking cookies for the meetings.) In 1995, she founded the [Galen Institute](https://galen.org/), [a think tank that fostered market-based health reforms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Institute). She served as [president and trustee](https://galen.org/about/scholars-and-staff/) for 30 years until [her death on May 29](https://www.colonialfuneralhome.com/obituary/grace-marie-turner) from brain cancer. Grace-Marie edited or contributed to multiple books, including [*Empowering Health Care Consumers Through Tax Reform*](https://www.amazon.com/Empowering-Health-Consumers-through-Reform/dp/0472067168) (University of Michigan Press, 1999), [*Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything*](https://www.cato.org/books/go-directly-jail) (Cato Institute, 2004), and [*Why ObamaCare Is Wrong for America*](https://www.harpercollins.com/products/why-obamacare-is-wrong-for-america-grace-marie-turnerjames-c-caprettathomas-p-millerrobert-e-moffit?variant=32209033265186) (HarperCollins, 2011). She was a frequent [guest](https://www.c-span.org/person/grace-marie-turner/1001842/) on C‑SPAN and a [witness](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Testimony+by+Grace-Marie+Turner%22&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS1087US1087&oq=%22Testimony+by+Grace-Marie+Turner%22&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRiPAjIHCAYQIRiPAtIBCDEyNzBqMGo5qAIAsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) before congressional committees. She sat on the boards of the [Winston Fellowship ](https://winstonfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/Winston-Brochure-2021.pdf)and the [Steamboat Institute](https://steamboatinstitute.org/person/grace-marie-turner/) and was an advisor to the [Catholic Medical Association](https://cicdc.org/speakers/grace-marie-turner/), Docs4PatientCare, and the [Paragon Health Institute](https://paragoninstitute.org/about/). She spoke at [multiple](https://www.cato.org/policy-report/november/december-1999/cato-events-education-reform-test-ban-treaty-debated%20) [Cato](https://www.cato.org/events/supreme-courts-obamacare-ruling-what-does-it-all-mean) [events](https://www.cato.org/events/reforming-americas-health-care-system-flawed-vision-obamacare) and [contributed](https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2002/5/cj22n1-9.pdf) to [*Cato Journal*](https://www.cato.org/search/category/reviews-journals+cato-journal/type/serial-issue). ![Grace-Marie Turner speaking in the Cato Institute's Hayek Auditorium, 2012.](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/2025-06/ObamacareWhatItMeans07022012266%20copy.jpg?itok=wVXNMJhx) Grace-Marie [authored](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/) a column at *Forbes* and boasted [bylines](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-debate-chance-on-drug-prices-policy-health-pharma-fadb6bcb) in [*The Wall Street Journal*](https://www.wsj.com/video/opinion-romney-obamacare-paternity-test/C2DC186D-C05A-466F-A8F8-89F746E34C27), [*The New York Times*](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/14/opinion/a-new-fix-for-obamacare.html), [*USA Today*](https://www.usatoday.com/opinion/), and most other publications you can imagine. *Washingtonian* magazine named Grace-Marie one of “Washington’s 500 Most Influential People” in 2021 (back when it was just the top 250), [2022](https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/05/03/washington-dcs-500-most-influential-people/#healthcare), [2023](https://www.washingtonian.com/2023/04/27/washington-dcs-500-most-influential-people-of-2023/#healthcare), [2024](https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/05/02/washington-dcs-500-most-influential-people-of-2024/#healthcare), and [2025](https://www.washingtonian.com/2025/05/07/washington-dcs-500-most-influential-people-of-2025/#healthcare). Née Arnett, Grace-Marie hailed from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she [began](https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/05/02/washington-dcs-500-most-influential-people-of-2024/#healthcare) her career as a feature writer for the *Albuquerque Journal*. A [pianist](https://www.washingtonian.com/2023/04/27/washington-dcs-500-most-influential-people-of-2023/#healthcare), she counted as her [most cherished possession](https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/05/02/washington-dcs-500-most-influential-people-of-2024/#healthcare) “the diary my father wrote as a B‑17 pilot stationed in North Africa during World War II.” Grace-Marie offered maybe the best career advice I’ve ever heard: [“The first place to look for a job is inside yourself, to find what you love to do. That is the best path to success and fulfillment.”](https://www.washingtonian.com/2023/04/27/washington-dcs-500-most-influential-people-of-2023/#healthcare) The most hostile room would feel safe the moment I saw Grace-Marie. One of my early mentors in Washington told me the hardest thing about getting old is that people die on you. Losing Grace-Marie is a hard one to take. My heart goes out to her husband, Mark Noyes, and her Galen family. Rest in peace. ##### Related Tags [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Libertarianism](https://www.cato.org/libertarianism) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).