Merrill Matthews

Merrill Matthews Jr., Ph.D. is policy director of the American Conservative Network, a project of the American Conservative Union, and a visiting scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Lewisville, Texas.

He is a public policy analyst specializing in health care, Social Security, welfare and Internet issues, and is the author of numerous studies in health policy, as well as other public policy issues. He currently is president of the Health Economics Roundtable for the National Association for Business Economics, the largest trade association of business economists, and health policy advisor for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a bipartisan association of state legislators.

Dr. Matthews serves as the medical ethicist for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Institutional Review Board for Human Experimentation, and has contributed chapters to two recently published books: Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate (Routledge, 1998) and The 21st Century Health Care Leader (Josey-Bass, 1998).

He is a “Brain Trust” columnist and editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and has been published in numerous journals and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times. He is the political analyst for USA Radio Network and has been a commentator for National Public Radio.

Dr. Matthews received his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas.