“I want the Senate to stop a new rule that lets AI companies delay or deny care for seniors on traditional Medicare. For-profit companies are using computers to block treatments that doctors recommend. Seniors paid for their Medicare, and they should not have their care delayed to save companies money. Vote yes to end this rule.”

“Mr. President, colleagues, at the beginning of this year, the Trump administration empowered unaccountable AI companies to delay and deny certain types of care in traditional Medicare. Now, Donald Trump promised--promised--that he would not touch Medicare, and, today, it is clear that that Trump promise has been broken. Seniors paid into Medicare out of every paycheck during their working years, and they did so with an expectation they would have an ironclad guarantee of affordable healthcare. Today, seniors in six States across America are discovering that care their doctor has recommended for them has been slowed or halted by a shadowy AI-driven third party. The consequences are not abstract. Seniors with severe back pain have to wait weeks for relief, upending their lives and leaving them suffering because of the bureaucracy of healthcare. The types of care that are subject to these restrictions are not frivolous: knee arthroscopies, nerve stimulations, steroid injections, cervical fusion. These types of procedures are the care that seniors rely on to stay mobile and pain-free in the aging process. Now, decisions between doctors and patients are overridden by for- profit AI contractors. The Trump administration’s only defense of this model has been to point to the rapid rise of skin substitute procedures to justify their flawed experiment. The Trump administration’s work doesn’t pass the smell test. First, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services already have now lowered payment rates for this procedure; in doing so, closed the loophole driving the dramatic increase. (Mrs. CAPITO assumed the Chair.) Second, the skin substitute procedures only account for a tiny fraction of care under the model. In the case of Oregon’s neighbor to the north, Washington State, skin substitutes account for less than 1 percent of services--less than 1 percent of the services, Madam Chair-- subject to the prior authorization under this model. So the excuses hold no water. Prior authorization has run rampant in the American healthcare system. For-profit insurance companies are increasingly using this business tactic to block and deter care in order to increase their profits. I want to put a fine point on this. In 2024, insurance companies that sell Medicare Advantage plans denied more than 4 million prior authorization requests--just think about that: 4 million prior authorization requests. Of those denials, only 1 in 10 were appealed by a senior or their doctor. But when the denial was appealed, it was overturned 8 times out of 10. What this tells me is that prior authorization is being used to deny legitimate care, often acting as a bureaucratic hurdle meant to discourage seniors and their doctors from pursuing a course of treatment that might impact insurance company’s bottom line. It is bad enough that this is the state of affairs in Medicare Advantage, but now the Trump administration is trying to import insurance company tactics into traditional Medicare. And that would mean that seniors who selected it precisely because they don’t want to deal with the headaches and complexity of an insurance company would suffer. This is not a partisan issue. Many of my Republican colleagues have expressed concern about prior authorizations and the state of Medicare Advantage. I hope that they will stand with those of us today who want to tell the Trump administration to abandon an ill-advised experiment that seniors don’t want. They didn’t ask for it. It doesn’t make sense. There is a lot of work to be done to improve both traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage for seniors that count on the Medicare guarantee. And I have been working on that Medicare guarantee since the days when I was a codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers. Let’s work on that together, and we can start by ending this AI-driven prior authorization experiment. It is a mistake. We can’t run the risk of it being sent to other parts of the healthcare system. I urge a ``yes’’ vote. I yield the floor.”

“I want the Senate to vote for this plan. The current rule does not stop waste or fraud. It just forces patients to make repeated, unnecessary visits to get care.”

“Madam President, we don’t take a back seat to anybody in terms of fighting inefficiency, fighting fraud. We have been working on those issues, as the chair of the Finance Committee knows, together wherever possible. Unfortunately, what we have seen in this experiment is that we are not dealing with inefficiency and fraud. We are forcing patients to come back again and again and again. That just defies common sense. And on the issues like skin substitutes, that has been addressed through a payment process, payment policy reform, to get at the incentives and wasteful utilization. So on the points that the minority is making, the reality is patients are not going to get care, and we are not going to make sensible changes as we have in other areas to deal with fraud and inefficiency. That is why we ought to be voting for what we are trying to do today on the Democratic side. I yield back and hope we will have a bipartisan vote.”

“I want the Senate to pass this resolution to stop a new Medicare program. The program uses artificial intelligence to delay or deny care that doctors recommend for seniors. Private companies are paid based on how many claims they deny, and that is harming patients.”

“Madam President, I wanted to talk today about not just how Republicans are making healthcare more expensive but also how they are making it just plain worse for seniors. President Trump came into office saying he would not cut Medicare, but that was clearly a lie because right now his administration is trying to privatize Medicare; in part, by putting AI between Medicare beneficiaries and their healthcare. In January of this year, under Secretary Kennedy and Dr. Oz’s leadership, CMS began this pilot program that uses AI to require prior authorization in traditional Medicare for the first time ever, and it is set to run for 6 years. They call it the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction Model. Well, they got the wasteful and inappropriate part right. The WISeR Model uses AI to deny vulnerable seniors the care they need and that their doctors recommend. Not only that, but the for-profit contractors that conduct this prior authorization are paid a percentage of the cost of care that they deny. They are literally incentivized to rip healthcare away from seniors because that is best for their bottom line. When your business model relies on denials, denials are what seniors are going to get, and that is perverse. WISeR was rolled out in the beginning of this year in my home State of Washington and five other States without safeguards and without any transparency and without the best interests of Medicare beneficiaries at the heart of this program. President Trump is saying: Forget the doctors who went to medical school and took an oath to do no harm. AI knows better when it comes to healthcare decisions for our seniors. The consequences of that poor judgment are real, and they are life- threatening. I hear from Medicare patients in Washington State all the time. They are suffering debilitating pain for weeks because they are not getting the care they need, thanks to this harmful model--patients like Joanne. She is a Medicare beneficiary from Quilcene, WA. She went to her doctor for severe pain. An MRI showed that a herniated disk was pressing on her sciatic nerve. Joanne’s doctor prescribed an epidural injection to help ease that pain. This was standard, routine care--care that, before this year, she would have been able to get quickly after it had been recommended by her doctor. But because of this WISeR Model, she had to wait 6 weeks to get approval. That means, thanks to WISeR, Joanne had to deal with unnecessary, unrelated pain for 6 weeks. Because of this nonsense delay, her day-to-day life was disrupted and the burden fell on her then to fight for the care she needed. This is simply outrageous, but that is also WISeR working by design, and that is a direct impact of the Trump administration’s actions. We have seen way too many stories like Joanne’s from States that have been selected for this pilot program. No way should an algorithm decide if seniors should get the care they need. That is exactly why I join my colleagues here in introducing a resolution to overturn this model. And I want all of my colleagues to join me in voting for it so we can make sure seniors in my State and all over the country can, once again, receive their healthcare on time and without interruption. Let’s just use our common sense. It is clear as day that some AI models should never be at the wheel making healthcare decisions left and right. And it is not just patients I have heard from. I have met with healthcare providers all over my State. Whether it is a rural hospital or a doctor in Seattle, no one--no one--has had anything good to tell me about prior authorization in traditional Medicare. Now, I ran for office because I believe regular people deserve a say in how their government is run, and that is especially true when it comes to the government deploying AI technology. I don’t know any senior--Republican or Democrat--who asked President Trump to let AI decide if their doctor-recommended treatment was necessary. Of course, AI can help make things more efficient or do good things. That is not what the WISeR Model is doing. So let’s get to the crux of it. As a country, we make a promise to American seniors: If they paid their taxes throughout their careers, they earned their Medicare coverage. Full stop. WISeR breaks that promise to seniors with these senseless AI-driven prior authorizations that deny and delay care. Let me be clear, many seniors choose traditional Medicare over other options because traditional Medicare rarely requires prior authorizations. People choose traditional Medicare because they want to make their healthcare decisions with their doctor, not with a private company that is out to make a profit. Simply put, the WISeR Model--which, again, delays and denies necessary care to Medicare patients--is reckless, and it is irresponsible. I want my Republican colleagues to join us in voting to get rid of WISeR once and for all because this should not be a partisan issue. We all have seniors in our States that deserve the highest level of care without having to deal with redtape and delay. Thanks to Trump, AI is getting in between our seniors and their healthcare in Arizona, in New Jersey, in Ohio, in Oklahoma, in Texas, and in my State of Washington. We have an opportunity to stop this harmful experimental pilot program before more seniors are harmed. No senior in America should have to appeal their pain and suffering to a machine. To my colleagues, if it were your spouse or parent who needed care, whom would you want to decide if they get their treatment, their doctor or a for-profit algorithm? Would you want them to suffer in pain for weeks for care that they are entitled to? I know what my answer is. Let’s maintain the promise of Medicare. Let’s pass this resolution. I yield the floor.”

• Reasons given
  ?

  Speech in the House

  Reasoning 100 of 100

  This statement drew 4 conclusions and gave a reason for each one.

  See full analysis →

“I want to stop this healthcare plan. It helps middlemen make money by denying care instead of helping people who need treatment.”

“Fortunately, for--let me say to Senator Murray that I so appreciate your presentation, and particularly talking about the algorithms. And, also, the fact is that under what you have described very clearly, the big winner under this flawed experiment is a bunch of middlemen who are trying to profit off denials, and not the people who really desperately need care. So I very much appreciate it, and Oregon is proud to be a partner with Washington State in leading the country to get rid of this very flawed idea. And I thank you for your remarks.”

• Vague
  ?

  Speech in the House

  Clarity 49 of 100

  Much of this statement used imprecise wording, lacked details on timing or responsibility, or made broad claims without support.

  See full analysis →

“Senator Murphy cannot be here to vote today.”

“I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) is necessarily absent. The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 50, as follows: The motion was rejected. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Armstrong). The majority leader.”