'Their Goal Is to Destroy Medicare': GOP Senators Block Bid to Stop AI Care Denials

In what critics called a troubling sign of where US healthcare policy is headed, Senate Republicans on Thursday torpedoed an effort by their Democratic colleagues to block a Trump administration pilot program under which private companies will use artificial intelligence to deny healthcare to patients seeking certain Medicare services.

Senators voted 50-46 along party lines against a Congressional Review Act resolution introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and supported by 20 Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The resolution was aimed at overturning the Trump administration's final rule establishing the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) so-called Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model.

"Yesterday, I voted to block [President Donald] Trump’s plan to let AI decide whether Medicare will approve or deny your medical care. Every Senate Republican supported Trump’s scheme," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Friday on social media. "Doctors should be deciding what care seniors need—not a computer program."

The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor union federation, said on X: "No senior should have to wait weeks to see a doctor because a flawed AI system won’t authorize it. The Trump [administration's] WISeR program is delaying treatment for Medicare patients and putting tech companies’ interests first. Congress must end it."

Alex Jacquez, senior vice president of policy, advocacy, and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, highlighted the "horrendous" WISeR rollout, which according to Kaiser Family Foundation, "has created confusion, errors, long wait times, and stress" and has left many patients "ensnared in the same red tape as those with private insurance."

CMS claims WISeR “helps protect American taxpayers by leveraging enhanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, along with human clinical review, to ensure timely and appropriate Medicare payment for select items and services.”

However, critics warn that AI will make it easier and faster to deny or delay care and have raised concerns that AI would likely be used as a cost-cutting tool to fulfill financial incentives.

“Yesterday, we were reminded who the Republicans are: a group of millionaires working for billionaires who will rip healthcare away from those who need it most," Alex Lawson, vice president of communications at the advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams on Friday.

"The White House leaned on the Republican senators and they folded like the cheap suits they are," he continued. "Cowards to a person."

Singling out Sen. Josh Hawley, Lawson said the Missouri Republican "pretends he would oppose Medicare delays and denials by algorithm or AI, but when the vote is called dutifully dances to the tune his master calls."

"Their goal is to destroy Medicare, to destroy guaranteed healthcare, to ensure that every facet of the 'healthcare system' serves only one purpose, profit," Lawson said of Republican lawmakers.

Private Medicare Advantage healthcare profiteers have been using AI to deny care for years. Consumers are aware of—and outraged by—the practice.

“I don’t know any senior, Republican or Democrat, who asked President Trump to let AI decide if their doctor-recommended treatment was necessary," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said on Thursday.