Pennsylvania is easing some requirements for drug and alcohol treatment providers with a goal of “expanding access to more Pennsylvanians and meeting them where they are.” Gov. Josh Shapiro announced this week that the state’s Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs will allow treatment providers to apply for a telehealth-only license, which effectively eliminates the need for a physical location.
While significant progress has been made, a fully AI-driven healthcare system remains a distant goal. However, even with ongoing challenges and limitations, AI has already begun to reshape the healthcare industry in profound and meaningful ways.
Healthcare companies are ending 2024 in the hot seat. Yet some of the pressures they're facing have been mounting all year — or longer. This month's killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson thrust his company, and his industry, into the spotlight. It also sparked widespread consumer reckoning over denied claims and the high costs of care in the United States, where health care is the most expensive in the world. Now lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle are stepping up their scrutiny of the industry. But even before Thompson's shocking death on a New York City street, and its ongoing aftermath, the business of Big Health Care was having a rocky year. Costs are up, profits are down, top executives have lost their jobs, and investors are selling off the shares. This industry, which affects the lives and very well-being of the entire country, has been getting relentlessly bigger for years. Industry executives say that this growth allows big companies to offer a wider array of low-cost healthcare services to more people, while critics and consumer advocates say that the size and scale of these companies makes them opaque and expensive, and ultimately leads to worse outcomes for patients.
California officials have declared a state of emergency over the spread of bird flu, which is tearing through dairy cows in that state and causing sporadic illnesses in people in the U.S. That raises new questions about the virus, which has spread for years in wild birds, commercial poultry and many mammal species. The virus, also known as Type A H5N1, was detected for the first time in U.S. dairy cattle in March. Since then, bird flu has been confirmed in at least 866 herds in 16 states. More than 60 people in eight states have been infected, with mostly mild illnesses, according to the CDC. One person in Louisiana has been hospitalized with the nation's first known severe illness caused by the virus.
Every country aims to control medical costs, and many wealthy nations—Switzerland, for example—also rely on private insurers to help manage care. What sets America apart is its patchwork system that pits loosely regulated, profit-driven players against each other. The result: enormous administrative waste, uncertainty for patients and little added value. The U.S. spends almost twice as much as comparable wealthy countries, including those with private insurers, on healthcare. Cracking down on insurance companies can only go so far in rectifying the disparity. That is because the bulk of America's health bill stems from the high cost of hospital services, drugs and care in general. Even if we were to eliminate insurer profits, we wouldn't make much of a dent in the high cost of U.S. healthcare. But that doesn't mean the insurance system can't work better. The roots of today's fragmented system can be traced back to a quirk in U.S. history. Unlike most high-income countries, which created centralized government systems to ration care in the 20th century, the U.S. followed a different path shaped by historical circumstances. During World War II, wage controls prompted employers to offer health insurance as a tax-free benefit to attract workers.
Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is now facing new federal charges of stalking and murder, which could bring the death penalty if convicted.