AOC: Trump Wants to Replace Doctors with AI to Determine Whether Medicare Patients Get the Care They Need

EXCERPT:

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “If you have a Medicare Advantage plan, which is the for-profit version of Medicare, you've definitely dealt with prior authorization. In fact, in 2023, Medicare Advantage for-profit health insurers filed over 100 times more prior authorization requests than traditional Medicare. And Medicare Advantage plans also deny care to patients at significantly higher rates than normal. Medicare Advantage plans deny as much as 16 times the normal rate. Does this sound consistent with some of what you've seen, Dr. Mello?”
MELLO: “Yes, I believe that's what numerous reports have indicated.”
OCASIO-CORTEZ: “And this is all to restrict patient care because we have a profit margin to maintain, and many of those for-profit insurers use unregulated and unsupervised AI models to review prior authorization requests. And I think it's very important that people understand that this is happening, that AI is being rolled out in the industry so that when a doctor who has gone through four years of medical school in addition to their additional training say that a patient needs something and they submit a prior authorization request, many times an AI model may deny them that care to a human being who has gone through extensive medical training.”