( CNN ) -- Smiling children are using prosthetic hands to open windows through which we can glimpse the future of health care -- a future where outsiders and amateurs innovate along with insiders and professionals . The question is , `` Will America lead the way , as it has for a century , or will it fall behind , as it has begun to do ? '' My forthcoming Mercatus Center research `` Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care '' argues that leading requires us to abandon the partisan rancor over health insurance ( `` Obamacare '' vs. `` repeal and replace '' ) and focus , instead , on innovating our way to better health . FDA-approved prosthetic hands cost around $ 40,000 . Several years ago , a South African carpenter lost some fingers in an accident and collaborated with a Washington state puppetmaker to invent a vastly more affordable device . They adapted a 19th-century metal-and-whalebone design for a 21st-century 3-D printer to produce a hand that allows users to drive , ride bikes , play ball , grasp objects and feel normal and complete . Printed hands require only a few hours of assembly time , and materials ( essentially a special glue , string and screws ) cost between $ 10 and $ 50 -- 1/1000 the cost of professional models . The proliferation of printed hands began when Jon Schull at the Rochester Institute of Technology formed e-NABLE , a global , Web-based social network , to connect people who need hands with people who are interested in building them . Amateurs quickly began modifying the hands . One added an extra thumb so his son could grasp objects more easily . A student designed a hand that rotates at the wrist just as natural hands can but which $ 40,000 prosthetics ca n't . Children designed hands that mimic those of comic-book superheroes -- earning the envy of classmates . Professional prosthetics are much more elaborate , but at $ 40,000 a pop , they are n't practical for growing children . A fashion designer created stunningly beautiful hands for a fellow student . 3-D Printed hands are evolving at breathtaking speed because of what my Mercatus colleague Adam Thierer calls `` permissionless innovation . '' No one has to beg permission from anyone to design , modify or distribute hands . That would n't be true if the hands included sensors and/or motors or if they were sold , rather than given away . Regulators would likely swoop in , and innovation would slow . Permissionless innovation is largely alien to health care . New drugs , devices and procedures typically wait for years as regulators sort through stacks of proposals and tons of data . The film `` Dallas Buyers Club '' is based on the true story of an AIDS victim , 30 days from death , who was denied lifesaving treatment because the Food and Drug Administration wanted extra years of testing to assure safety and effectiveness . The greatest example of permissionless innovation is the Internet . In the early 1990s , the federal government surrendered control over the Internet and enabled commercial developers to make full use of the system . Once that happened , professionals and amateurs produced software , hardware and apps in ways and at speeds no one could have foreseen . An American of 25 years ago could scarcely believe our world of Google , Siri , GPS , YouTube , Street View , Facebook , Amazon , Bitcoin and Kindle . None of this would have happened had there been a Federal Internet Commission judging each innovation . If you think , `` but health care is different , '' keep in mind that it would have been equally easy in 1989 to demand heavy regulation of a frightening new communication technology . The Internet raises risks of online fraud , sexual predators , coordinated terrorism , identity theft and privacy violations . If such things as OnStar , GM 's safety and connectivity system , or hospital connectivity fails , people can die . Somehow , we decided to accept these risks to enjoy the benefits . Health care may change as much by 2039 as consumer electronics did since 1989 . We 'll likely see 3-D printed transplantable organs , drugs tailor-made to patients ' personal DNA , nanobots to repair damaged genes and artificial intelligence to guide people toward wellness . Excessive regulation , however , can bring these processes to a crawl . Adam Thierer says , `` Trying to preemptively plan for every hypothetical worst-case scenario means the best-case scenarios will never come about . '' The innovations will happen in Europe , India , Singapore and elsewhere if not here . And to compete , we have to accept some risks and open the door to some outside innovators . No one suggests completely deregulated health care . The question is one of degree and design . Already , Europe surpasses the United States in drug availability , thanks to its more decentralized approval process . We can suggest an Iron Law of Innovation : For better products at lower cost , you must allow reasonable risk-taking ( by consumers and producers ) , and you must allow unknown outsiders to introduce unexpected genius into the process . The printed hand shows us how . The task is to apply its lessons across health care . Talking about innovation will be a lot more fun and incredibly more productive than squabbling over Obamacare . Rise of 'cyberathletes ' could change sport as we know it .
Adam Thierer : 3-D printers are opening up possibilities for low-cost prosthetics . Graboyes -approved prosthetic hands , for example , can cost $ about $ 50 . Printed ones , about $ 50 . He says `` permissionless innovation '' lets design of One printed hands quickly evolve . FDA : Such unleashed innovation should be applied across all of health care .