The Senate Finance Committee<\/strong> contemplated the future yesterday: artificial intelligence and its potential applications to health care.<\/p>\n

And it turns out the future looks an awful lot like the past and present: Democrats want regulations. And the industry wants money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of reasons to be optimistic,\u201d Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden<\/strong> (D-Ore.) said. But, he warned, algorithms need regulation and accountability to make sure they aren\u2019t producing bad or biased recommendations that deny care or lead to inappropriate care.<\/p>\n

He expressed outrage at the results of 2019 research<\/u><\/a> led by Ziad Obermeyer<\/strong>, a University of California at Berkeley<\/strong> associate professor, who found that one commercial algorithm recommended less health care for Black patients based on historical cost data.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow does such a flawed system make its way into general use<\/strong>?\u201d Wyden said. \u201cNobody\u2019s watching. No guardrails. No guardrails to protect the patients from flawed algorithms and AI systems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear whether this algorithm is still being marketed, Obermeyer testified later.<\/p>\n

The hearing marked Congress\u2019s latest attempt to wrap its head around the newest AI systems, which can mimic some forms of human reasoning to make predictions and calculations, or generate text and images that look deceptively human-created.<\/p>\n

Wyden touted his \u201cAlgorithmic Accountability Act,\u201d <\/strong>a bill intended to force companies to assess their own products and require the Federal Trade Commission<\/strong> to collect and report data on AI systems. But Republicans indicated that they don\u2019t want to move quickly on the emerging technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AI is already prevalent in health care<\/strong>; doctors use the systems to distill patient visits into clinical notes and to point out potentially cancerous lesions or polyps, for example. Accordingly, there\u2019s big Washington muscle behind the algorithms: CNBC<\/strong> counts a <\/u>185 percent <\/u><\/strong>surge<\/u><\/a> \u2014 from 158 to over 450 \u2014 in the number of organizations lobbying on AI regulations.<\/p>\n

Industry leaders \u2014 and the committee\u2019s Republicans \u2014 didn\u2019t explicitly refute the need for regulations at Thursday\u2019s hearing. But their vision for it was more constrained and, in one instance, raised the question: Can tech watchmen watch the tech watchmen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take Sen. Bill Cassidy<\/strong> (R-La.), who mused at the end of the hearing that AI models could wind up rating AI models. Asking for responses from witnesses, he reminded them to \u201cplease be tight with your answers\u201d \u2014 and cut them off soon after most told him that humans needed to evaluate the models.<\/p>\n

\u201cPractically, that seems like that\u2019s going to be incredibly cumbersome,\u201d he informed University of Chicago <\/strong>Provost Katherine Baicker<\/strong>. \u201cThat seems impossible,\u201d he told Mark Sendak<\/strong>, co-leader of Duke<\/strong>\u2019s Health AI Partnership, about the researcher\u2019s proposals on the need for local human oversight of algorithms.<\/p>\n

The committee\u2019s senior Republican, Sen. Mike Crapo<\/strong> (Idaho), acknowledged in a statement the importance of \u201ctransparency\u201d in AI systems. But he also decried the idea of quickly legislating on AI through \u201cone-size-fits-all, overly rigid, and unduly bureaucratic laws.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

While proposals to regulate AI were contentious, one idea drew support from Republicans, the panel\u2019s witnesses and even some Democrats: the need for industry to be paid for its innovations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs game-changing AI-enabled devices and other technologies emerge, Medicare coverage and payment policies must keep pace,\u201d Crapo said in his statement.<\/p>\n

Sen. Bob Menendez<\/strong> (D-N.J.) noted that according to recent research, Medicare reimburses \u201cfewer than 20\u201d AI services, before asking whether more payments would be useful. Other senators also indicated support for more cash to the industry.<\/p>\n

Peter Shen<\/strong>, head of digital and automation at Siemens Healthineers<\/strong>, proposed that tech manufacturers submit cost data to Medicare and receive five years of payments. Otherwise, the government\u2019s \u201cinconsistent, unpredictable\u201d approach would stifle innovation, he argued.<\/p>\n

Sendak said health providers lack infrastructure and training to use AI, noting the billions of dollars the government spent to encourage them to adopt electronic health records. \u201cWe need similarly bold action now,\u201d he said in written testimony.<\/p>\n

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This article is not available for syndication due to republishing restrictions. If you have questions about the availability of this or other content for republication, please contact NewsWeb@kff.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
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