Forbes names Roy as its opinion editor

Health policy expert and longtime Forbes contributor Avik Roy has been hired as opinion editor for Forbes, starting in January 2014.

He will direct a sweeping expansion of the company’s coverage of public policy and politics. To support this effort, Forbes plans to add an additional 75 to 100 contributors to its current roster of 1,200 contributing writers.

“For nearly 100 years, Forbes has been the champion of entrepreneurs,” Roy said in a statement. “Entrepreneurs have always understood the value of freedom and free markets, but they also share a passion for making the world a better place. I want to bring Forbes’ entrepreneurial vigor to opinion writing, by fostering a creative conservatism that is committed to expanding opportunity for those who least have it.”

Roy is currently editor and principal author of The Apothecary, the influential Forbes blog on health care policy and entitlement reform. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes calls The Apothecary “one of the best takes from conservatives on that set of issues.” Ezra Klein of the Washington Post calls The Apothecary one of the few “blogs I disagree with [that] I check daily.” Even the New York Times’ Paul Krugman says that “Roy is about as good as you get in this stuff: his tone is even, he actually knows something.”

In addition to his work at Forbes, Roy is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. In 2012, he served as a health care policy adviser to Mitt Romney. He is a frequent guest on television news programs, including appearances on Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, and HBO. Roy is a columnist for National Review Online, and his work has also appeared in The Atlantic, USA Today, National Affairs, and The American Spectator, among other publications.  Roy is the author of “How Medicaid Fails the Poor,” published in October by Encounter Books.

Read more here.