Experts urge caution as Trump's big bill incentivizes AI in healthcare

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Sun 14 Dec 2025 07.00 EST
Last modified on Sun 14 Dec 2025 07.02 EST


For states to receive certain funding stipulated in the Trump administration’s “big, beautiful” bill, they must meet three of 10 criteria – including integrating more artificial intelligence (AI) technology in healthcare settings – which experts say could have major benefits and liabilities for under-resourced hospitals, depending on how it’s implemented.

The Rural Health Transformation Fund is a carveout that will provide $50bn over a period of five years to states who meet certain application criteria, including “consumer-facing, technology-driven solutions for the prevention and management of chronic diseases,” and “providing training and technical assistance for the development and adoption of technology-enabled solutions that improve care delivery in rural hospitals, including remote monitoring, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies”.

Analysts have noted that this $50bn will not be nearly enough to make up for the Congressional Budget Office’s projected $911bn reduction in Medicaid spending over the next decade under the bill (Obba).

These cuts will affect both patients who lose free health coverage under Medicaid, and hospitals who benefit from those patients’ Medicaid reimbursements.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/14/trump-healthcare-ai

[rampartd]

1. so i get medical advice and prescriptions from the artificial intelligence trained by dr oz?

need premium subscription to get anything other ivermectin and a band aid?

[Silent Type]

2. Honest to gawd, I wouldn't mind AI checking what my doc does or doesn't do. I think he's mediocre at best and

a quack at times. Would look for another, but I might get worse.

[hlthe2b]

3. Zero protections to prevent messaging the worried lay public to seek low cost, low efficacy alternative treatment

or no treatment, or even something sure to kill them, albeit not immediately.

Gotta save the insurance companies money, after all.

And if you think primary care will be the guardrails/caretakers for THAT, I've got news for you. First, they are too overworked and limited by insurance payment procedures that prevent them from taking that kind of time--if they wanted to. Second, primary care physicians rarely question something that falls under a specialty diagnosis and treatment orders- (some do, but on the whole, no, and again that "time thing versus payment restrictions" constraint). Third, we have an intensely gullible public that would rather go to a YouTube non-credentialed "influencer" for vital health information, rather than even those credible websites produced by experts and rewritten to provide easily understood information. And no, those no longer include Federal websites, but academic, major referral hospitals, and many state public health websites.

The future of medical care and good outcomes has already been largely decimated, but this will put the final nail in the future outcomes for all but the most wealthy and educated Americans.

[slightlv]

4. This x1000!

Gotta save the insurance companies money, after all.

And that's all this is. Another new way for "cost cutting" at the expense of our health and lives. I don't think I can hate this country any more than I do right now. Too much has gone on the entire week... and the entire 10 years we've had him in our faces. Why doesn't he just die already? Why isn't AI advising him to do just that?!

[reACTIONary]

6. You don't believe we should be promoting....

... the "adoption of technology-enabled solutions that improve care delivery in rural hospitals"?

What's wrong with that? I seems pretty progressive to me.

[slightlv]

7. After decades of "progressive changes" (not ALWAYS IT related)

I have a hell of a lot of heart burn. Now, is the technology.... or is the greed behind the technology? To be honest, I really don't know. I DO know most of the great technology we started out with... our dreams... our ideals... all turned to the military and became that which we kill people. Just like the atomic bomb. I have become death.

When you can guarantee you have non-greedy, altruistic people in charge of creation of the technology AND the use and maintenance of it, THEN I will probably settle down. I'm an FDR Democrat. But I'm also practical. I was also in technology for 40 years, from the very start of the machines, the WANGS, etc. I knew the potential; I know how it turned out. THe glory days lasted almost 40+ years from start to finish. From the times we were in demand and could get good pay, to the point that most of us were paid low tiered help desk wages.

So, is it the tech, or is it the people creating and running the tech. And I tell you, from what I've seen from the start to present of this Info Age, there'll be a hell of a lot more people hurt with AI (especially) than it will help. You're seeing that right now all across the public spectrum. People losing jobs; hospitals closing; clinics closing. Deep fake videos. kids being told to commit suicide and then told explicitly how to do it. Kids being told to commit murder. But it's not the AI, is it? It's be programming *behind* the AI... Musk, and others... there is no regulation. And just like laissez faire capitalism, THIS will end pretty much same way with as many, or more people hurt.

[reACTIONary]

8. After decades of progressive science and technology development....

.... in biology and medicine, we are now living longer and and have much easier lives.

I'm supportive of the this rural health program and I think it will have very positive results for many, many people who are currently underserved.

Scientific and technological advances have over and over and over made life better and better and better, for more and more people the world over. I think we should keep that up.

[reACTIONary]

5. Here is the actual text of the clause that mentions AI....

AI is just one of a list of examples of advanced technologies, and it isn't even required that any advanced technologies need be actually adopted, just that training and technical assistance towards that goal be made.

My opinion - over all, this is a very progressive program that can do a lot of good, and the mere listing of AI as an example among other examples of advanced technologies is not very concerning nor is it inappropriate.

‘‘(6) USE OF FUNDS.—Amounts allotted to a State under this subsection shall be used for 3 or more of the following health-related activities:

‘‘(A) Promoting evidence-based, measurable interventions to improve prevention and chronic disease management.

‘‘(B) Providing payments to health care providers for the provision of health care items or services, as specified by the Administrator.

‘‘(C) Promoting consumer-facing, technology-driven solutions for the prevention and management of chronic diseases.

‘‘(D) Providing training and technical assistance for the development and adoption of technology-enabled solutions that improve care delivery in rural hospitals, including remote monitoring, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies.

‘‘(E) Recruiting and retaining clinical workforce talent to rural areas, with commitments to serve rural communities for a minimum of 5 years.

‘‘(F) Providing technical assistance, software, and hardware for significant information technology advances designed to improve efficiency, enhance cybersecurity capability development, and improve patient health outcomes. ‘

‘(G) Assisting rural communities to right size their health care delivery systems by identifying needed preventative, ambulatory, pre-hospital, emergency, acute inpatient care, outpatient care, and post-acute care service lines.

‘‘(H) Supporting access to opioid use disorder treatment services (as defined in section 1861(jjj)(1)), other substance use disorder treatment services, and mental health services.

‘‘(I) Developing projects that support innovative models of care that include value-based care arrangements and alternative payment models, as appropriate.

‘‘(J) Additional uses designed to promote sustainable access to high quality rural health care services, as determined by the Administrator.

https://www.congress.gov/119/plaws/publ21/PLAW-119publ21.pdf, search for "71401", the section it appears in.