Grandpa Dave Reads the News

They said what, again?

January 9th, 2024
This morning I thought I would read transcripts of recent Trump and Biden campaign speeches, and attempt to summarize what they actually said they would do if elected, as opposed to what they are saying about the other guy, or what the media is saying about them.

I found a transcript of a typical Trump speech given three weeks ago in Reno. I have tried hard to ignore any insults, name calling, or other statements that seem untrue, meaningless or misleading. So, here is what Donald Trump says he would do if re-elected:
- Stop the hoards of illegal alien migrants, and effect the largest deportation in American history (these migrants are criminals, mental institution patients, and terrorists).
- “Invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members, from the United States, ending the gorge of illegal alien gang violence once and for all.” (This 1878 law is what was used to inter Japanese-Americans into camps during WWII, and allows a president to expel anyone believed to be an enemy or working with one. It was enacted to subdue John Adams’ political opponents, who were sympathetic to the French when there was concern the French would invade after the Revolutionary War.)
- “I will shift massive portions of federal law enforcement to immigration enforcement, including parts of the DEA, ATF, FBI and DHS, and I will make clear that we must use any and all resources needed to stop the invasion of our country, including moving thousands of troops currently stationed overseas in countries that don’t like us.” (US law makes it illegal to use Federal troops to address domestic policy issues, so it would not be clear how Federal troops could be brought back from overseas.)
- “I will prevent World War Three and we’re very close to World War Three.” He notably doesn’t say how, but I thought this seemed important. We probably are close to WWIII. During his first administration he alienated our allies, so unlike WWII we might be fighting this next world war all by ourselves.
- “We will restore law and order to our communities, and I will direct a completely overhauled DOJ to investigate every radical out-of-control prosecutor in America for their illegal racist in reverse enforcement of the law. I am also going to indemnify all those policemen that were shaking my hand back there.” (He goes on to say that police officers should be able to do whatever they want, and his government would reimburse them for legal expenses should they break the law and be prosecuted for it.)
- “…we’ll work closely with the Democrat leaders of all these failing places [the big cities] to make sure that this rebuilding will be a lasting and compassionate one.” He is proposing to “rebuild” cities to make them safe from crime, which he claims they are not currently. This includes specific reference to Washington, D.C. which he says will be run by the Federal Government [although it already is].
- “Under the Trump administration, if colleges and universities discriminate against conservatives, Christians, Jews, anybody, if they attack free speech, we are going to take away their tax advantages, grants, and endowment.” This sounds like McCarthyism to me, but you can decide for yourself.
- We will “end this war on American energy, and we will drill, baby, drill. We’re going to drill.” Since we are currently the world’s largest exporter of petroleum products, and petroleum companies are reaping record profits thanks in part to ongoing Federal subsidies, it’s not clear what he means here other than a subtext for a screed against “tree huggers.” In any event, the US Federal Government has very limited ability to control the petroleum market, so this sounds like a dig at mitigating global warming without actually saying so.
- “I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.” I’m not sure that the President has the authority to do this, but you get the idea. This would amplify the current book banning trend.
- “I will fully uphold the Second Amendment. I will protect innocent life and we will restore free speech in America once again.” Gun rights, abortion, and free speech are all conflated here. Making abortion illegal in more places is a wildly unpopular idea. Are we going to shoot the bad moms? It’s confusing, to me anyway.
- “We can handle that if we have the right president, but what’s very difficult are these corrupt communists that we have within our own country.” I pulled out this quote because it so closely parallels the rhetoric of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. If you don’t know who this is, look him up.
- “Fake news is all you get and they [the press] are indeed the enemy of the people.” Emphasis is mine- this is a quote from Stalin who said it as part of his policy of destroying the free and independent press, so that Russian citizens would not know the truth.
- “And less than three years ago, we had Iran, China, Russia and North Korea in check. They respected us. They were afraid of us.” Again, this is not true. The statement implies that if you elect me, I will make these other countries afraid of us and respect us (again). I am strong and will punch those guys in the face.
- “We will institute the powerful death penalty for drug dealers where each dealer is responsible for the death, during their lives, of 500 people or more. This is the only thing that will work.” Although I don’t think that the President has the authority to do this, nor does it make much sense, it signals that his administration would focus on punishment.
- “With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, we will throw off the sick political class.” My translation: we will put my political opponents in jail, or at the least remove them from office. Think Stalin or Mao Tse-tung. The term “globalist” has been associated with anti-Semitism, referring to Jews as “globalists.” I don’t really know what he actually meant by any of this.
- “The great silent majority is rising like never before.” This is a quote from Richard Nixon, the only President to resign under a cloud of corruption. Nixon took the lack of support as a sign that Americans secretly agreed with him.
He said a lot of other stuff! The overall tone of it is that this country is horrible – crime ridden, corrupt, run by criminals, being overrun by foreigners, schools are ruining our kids, we are seen as weak by our enemies, world war III is imminent, inflation is rampant, other countries are taking advantage of us, the press is lying to you (except for Fox, I guess), and worse. The way back to strength, integrity and wholeness is to elect me. This campaign strategy has worked well for other autocratic national leaders in the past, although the eventual outcome was often bad for the people in their countries.

What are the key actions that he specifically said he would take if elected? a) impose tariffs that would increase prices for average Americans; b) admit fewer workers into the country, which would increase prices by forcing wages up for unskilled jobs that Americans generally don’t want; c) put undesired aliens into camps; d) enable more gun violence by relaxing gun safety legislation; e) enhance the micro-managing of school curricula, including book banning; f) punish his political enemies, which appears to include spilling over into anyone who exercises free speech about government problems; and g) transform the Department of Justice to allow for more efficient retribution against political enemies, whoever they might be.

He does not mention that he specifically has not agreed to abide by a legitimate election outcome should he lose, and he refused to say that he would not run the country as a dictator. He also said he would pardon those who have been convicted of insurrection on Jan 6.

Now I need to do this same analysis for Biden.

Oops! I read his first campaign speech, given at Valley Forge, and it said in essence: “I am not Donald Trump. I stand for democracy, so vote for me if you don’t want Trump but you do want the ideals of George Washington and our great country.” He is specific about many anti-democratic things that Trump stands for, but not so much about policies or actions that he would take if elected. The good news is that it is coherently written, with no wandering, no word salads, no random items thrown in the way Trump’s speech was, and I did not spot anything that was obviously untrue. So, based on the two speeches, I’d say that Biden wins the “Does this old person suffer from cognitive impairment?” contest.

This felt incomplete, so I read a transcript of his second campaign speech of 2024, given at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC. He made these points specific to what he would do if elected:
- I will continue to make drugs more affordable, as I have already done;
- I will continue to make health health insurance more affordable- for example, I’m going to make sure that Medicare can negotiate lower prices for all Americans;
- I am going to make childcare and eldercare more affordable, and when I did this for childcare with a tax credit, the other side blocked it;
- Although I did not get a police reform law passed (the other side blocked it so I had to implement an executive order), I will renew the fight to reform policing with legislation if you elect me so that the police obey the law;
- I will work to prevent housing discrimination ;
- We will continue to invest in HBCUs so that they have funding comparable to other Universities- note what I have already done to reduce student debt, an issue that impacts African Americans disproportionately;
- Every single lead pipe in America is going to be taken out and replaced, another problem that impacts African-Americans;
- I will do whatever it takes to make guns safer so that there are fewer injuries and deaths, and without violating the second amendment (the other said of a recent shooting “you have to get over it” but I say “We have to stop it”);
- I will continue to appoint more Black women to Federal Circuit Court;
- My administration will look like America, tapping into our full strength as a nation.
The tone and content are appropriately focused on the issues faced by the congregation of a Black church, which was the audience for this particular speech. For these issues, he is very specific about what he will do. In other words, each of his two speeches was crafted to suit the audience; he did not just rattle on with a generic stump speech. While he points out the contrast between his goals and those of his opponent (see the item on gun violence, for example), he does not use name-calling but rather just repeats what the other guy said. Sentence structure and ideas are carefully presented, grammatically correct, and the flow makes sense.

He closes with a few words specific to the founder of the Emanuel Church, including appropriate language from the Bible that the parishioners would relate to, and would seem to reflect that President Biden is familiar with Christian scripture. He ends with: “May God bless you all, and may God protect our troops.”

AND THEN: the CNN anchors discuss the speech, and they ignore almost everything of substance that he said regarding what he would do if elected. They talk about the “divisions within the Democratic party” and other aspects they seem to think would bear on strategy between the two parties. If all you heard was the commentary, you would have no idea what a next Biden administration would intend to accomplish, or why you should vote for or against it. One of the CNN journalists emphasized what he personally said to SC Congressman Jim Clyburn (who introduced Biden), giving the Congressman advice on what the journalist thought the campaign needed to do to win. I’m sure this made the journalist feel important, but was both distracting and unhelpful to voters.

Reading these transcripts was an exercise in attempting to find out who would make a better national leader based on what they actually say they will do if elected. Did it work?

Here are links to the transcripts that I read:

Donald Trump Rally in Reno 12/17/23 Transcript

Biden Marks Jan. 6 Anniversary with Speech on Democracy

https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/se/date/2021-10-21/segment/01.
Banned, for the Wrong Reasons

December 29th, 2023

click here to read the story
Let’s have some musical fun with AI

December 20th, 2023

Last week I accepted a challenge to name a popular song that rose to number 1 on the charts but that used a 3/4 time signature, and that wasn’t “Tennessee Waltz.” Songs in “three” are unusual in popular music, although there are some with segments or transitions to 3/4 that then revert to the more common 4/4.

To recap: 4/4 means that each measure, or basic time unit, has 4 beats, and each beat is a quarter note (“quarter” = 1/4th), so like a 4×4 pickup truck, you are invited to stomp out a danceable 1-2-3-4 rhythm.

The first few measures from Wilson Pickett’s recording of Mustang Sally, written by Mack Rice, demonstrating 4/4 time

This Wilson Pickett standard from the late 1960’s makes you want to move your body to 1,2,3,4; it’s like a drug. There is no way to count to three anywhere near this beat. Believe me, I have tried and failed.

Now listen to this one:

The Blue Danube Waltz, illustrating 3/4 time

This orchestral piece, written by Austrian Johann Strauss and first performed in Vienna in 1867 has lived a second life as the music of the arriving moon shuttle in Stanley Kubrik’s movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It evokes stately court dancing to a 1-2-3 rhythm in 19th Century Europe (or two spaceships dancing in harmony as they move together while spinning, and don’t forget the zero-G toilet). As you listen, count the “1-2-3’s” out loud. Even dance around the room if you are alone and no one can see you, pretending to be in the Royal Viennese ballroom. I won’t tell.

Now that you are an expert at listening to time signatures, let’s see what ChatGPT, the most well-known AI bot, came up with. I asked it to name a few popular songs whose time signatures were 3/4 that reached number one on the charts, and it said “These songs are beloved classics that showcase the beauty of the 3/4 time signature in different genres.” The first was this wonderful song “My Love” written by Sir Paul McCartney.

“My Love,” by Sir Paul McCartney and Wings, which is not in 3/4 time

There is no way that this is in 3/4 time! Oops! Although I like this song a lot, and enjoyed the chance to listen to it again. Hearing Sir Paul reminded me of a favorite Lennon / McCartney selection that transitions into 3/4 from 4/4 which is of course “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” where it goes “picture yourself…” but the query was for songs entirely in three. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find this one and play it.

Let’s try again, Mr. Chatbot. This time, the response was the Frank Sinatra classic “Strangers in the Night.” Again, I really enjoyed a chance to reconnect with ol’ blue eyes, but after counting out loud and even pulling up the sheet music on the Internet, I had to give ChatGPT a big FAIL on this one. Unlike the Wilson Pickett selection earlier, this tempo seems to want to be counted in eight — or four if you slow it down — but NOT THREE.

Ol’ Blue Eyes singing in 4/4 time – strike two for ChatGPT

Can we try one more time?

ChatGPT is always happy to oblige, being a robot and all. If you ask it to just find more, it will do it’s best. So here is the next one up at bat:

“Save the Last Dance for Me” by the Drifters. I’m so infatuated with this hit by the Drifters I can hardly contain myself! They don’t write them like this any more. Unfortunately for ChatGPT, they didn’t write this one in 3/4 either. It has an infectious calypso-type beat that I would identify as “1 — 2, 1 –2” with some syncopation on the percussion with the “2” part of the beat that makes it interesting, but sadly does not make it a 1-2-3 song. It did hit number one on the charts for 3 weeks, as well it should have. I had to play it three times, it is that much fun.

The Drifters in 1960 with “Save the Last Dance for Me”

ChatGPT is nothing if not persistent, so for the next attempt was “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” by Elvis Presley. Hooray! We have a winner! This one even hit number one in 1960, shortly after Elvis returned from service in the Army. He did not write it, but that’s ok.

Elvis wins, in a live performance of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

Is there a conclusion from all this musical nonsense? I would offer that 1) listening to songs on your phone or computer is a very pleasant way to pass time, and 2) the AI chatbots are not too good about facing up to what they know and what they don’t know. I call them “the unknown unknowns.”

Any time I have an excuse to listen to Wilson Pickett, I will take it.
Where Eagles Dare

December 14th, 2023

dO WIND TURBINES KILL BALD EAGLES?
The Doctor Will (not) See You Now

December 11th, 2023
A recent research study in the news highlighted a concern that there are not enough physicians to serve the Florida population; a unfortunate combination of the fact that the population is going up and the number of doctors is going down. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt that there aren’t enough doctors to go around, but I did not see any convincing reasons in the news reports regarding why doctors are leaving. (In Idaho, for example, OB/GYNs are leaving the state because they fear being arrested for doing their jobs and accidently violating the new abortion laws.) It shouldn’t be that hard to ask a few Florida doctors why they are moving, quitting, or retiring.

Floridian Doctor Brown Pelican (whose beak can hold more than his belican), says “I want to quit”, but then has to admit- that he just doesn’t know how the helican.

I was able to dig up a few items for reference with data from the US Census Bureau. In Massachusetts, there are 460 doctors for every 100,000 people. By contrast, Florida has only 270. Maybe they are quitting because they are overworked; this would be a doom spiral. Also, in Florida, 12% of the population is uninsured while in MA it’s 2%. So maybe doctors move out of Florida because they can’t get paid by uninsured patients. And by the way, Idaho has the fewest doctors per resident (see my last paragraph). OK, here’s another one: Florida has about 19 physicians in training (i.e., in a state residency program) for every 100,000 people while Massachusetts has 84. Studies show that doctors who complete residencies are likely to stay in the state where they were trained. So, maybe there aren’t enough young doctors joining the workforce. One more factor is that doctors in Florida, like everyone else who lives there, are older than those in other states. This means that they are retiring at a higher rate. There was some anecdotal evidence that the older doctors are fed up with restrictive policies of the large corporations that now employ them, which was not the case when they were younger and practicing independently, incenting them to retire

In searching for more information, I found an opinion piece on LinkedIn about the doctor shortage in panhandle Bay County, FL, under the byline “Michelle Hertog,” who appears to be an associate realtor with the advertising slogan “Your Friend in Real Estate.” After Ms. Hartog concisely and accurately summarized the recent research report on the shortage of physicians, she provided this conclusion, which I quote verbatim, including the word ‘conclusion’:

“Conclusion: Summarize the main points and arguments of the essay. Restate the thesis and emphasize the urgency and importance of addressing the doctor shortage in Bay County, Florida. Provide some recommendations or call to action for the stakeholders involved, such as the local government, health care providers, educational institutions, and community organizations.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

This of course inspired me to go to the universal source of truth, ChatGPT. It actually suggested some things that I had not considered, including:
- Malpractice insurance rates are very high in Florida, due to restrictive laws about liability, particularly in high risk practice areas;
- There are telemedicine restrictions in Florida that do not occur in other states;
- Insurance regulations lead to more paperwork and wasted time completing insurance requirements for patients than exist in many other states; and finally
- There are apparently licensing transfer restrictions in Florida that make it more difficult to move there for a practice than exist in other states.
In all fairness, my Mom lived for 20 years in Ft Myers, Florida at a Continuing Care Retirement Community and received excellent health care. The nearby hospital took good care of her, and the medical staff at her assisted living facility was top notch. So don’t go thinking from all this that you can’t get health care in Florida. On the other hand, her situation might not have been the norm for the average Florida resident. And, as far as I know, she never had her blood pressure checked by Doctor Pelican.
Don’t look!

November 30th, 2023

The second book in my ongoing quest to read the books most often banned from America’s impressionable youth was “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health” by Robie Harris and illustrated by Michael Emberley.

This one is an introduction to how the reproductive parts of your body work, how you change through puberty, health consequences of sex, an overview of different gender-based relationships, including LGBTQ+ topics, and more, aimed at teens and those experiencing puberty. The pictures are drawings, and they are both cute and specific (and I thought, tasteful). I have chosen not to reproduce any of them here, for obvious reasons, but you get the idea. The illustrations needed to be specific, given that it is an educational volume for those who are encountering their own changing bodies for the first time.

I had no difficulty obtaining a copy from my local library.

I approve of this one, and when I was undergoing the mysterious changes of puberty, I would have very much appreciated the information. Otherwise, kids learn from the Internet. Which is bad.

Personal note: when I was experiencing puberty, my mom gave me a short pamphlet in lieu of talking to me about the subject. I was glad to have read the pamphlet, but this book would have been much better. At that age, you just want to know.

So, what’s all the fuss about?
I read my first banned book!

November 28th, 2023

The number one banned book in the US today is Gender Queer, published in 2019. As a graphic novel it was a pretty fast read. I was able to easily get a copy from my local public library, so I guess that the whole banning thing is not totally working.

The story looks back at the maturing journey of the author, Maia Kobabe, born female, as he/she discovers at an early age that she feels like both a boy and a girl, and also neither.

In reading critics’ reviews of this story I learned that a novel of growing into adulthood is called a bildungsroman — my new favorite word — a German compound translated roughly as “novel of formation.” A classic example is Luke Skywalker, who discovers that the force was inside him all along.

Gender Queer deals frankly with issues of teenage sex and love, which is why some people don’t like it. I guess they can’t remember what it was like when they were a teenager, or they are now afraid of who they were.

Seriously, I am still a little bit afraid of who I was during my teenage years, and I’m now in my 70s. Growing up is hard work (like, does it ever end?), and the path from kid to adult is strewn with boulders and detours. This is true for those whose desires and habits meet the expectations of the culture they live in. For those who don’t feel like they fit, there be trauma.

Anyway, my take is that if you are one of those who experience ambiguity about your own gender, this book could validate your feelings and help you work through them. Good! Conversely, if you are more typically attracted towards the opposite sex, nothing about it would deter you from staying on the straight and narrow. Also good!

Conclusion: what’s the fuss about?
Books: too dangerous for children

November 26th, 2023

I personally think that pretty much everything is too dangerous for children, but somehow they have to grow into adults. It’s a miracle.

In reading the news on a daily basis, a recurring theme over the past couple of years has been the attempt to prevent school-aged children from reading books. According to PEN America, a literacy advocacy group, since the fall of 2021 almost 6,000 books have been banned in American schools. It’s an epidemic. In some schools in Florida, for example, the entire school library and all classrooms have had every book removed, with individual books reinstated only after a committee has read and reviewed each one for “suitability” and returned it. This process can take years, assuming that it ever puts most of them back.

This, of course, got me to thinking: if these books are so dangerous and powerful, then perhaps I should go take them out of the library and read them myself. And so was born a personal project.

In future blog posts, I will provide my book reviews of the ones that I read. I plan to select the ones most frequently banned, or that represent unique forms of evil should they seep into the impressionable minds our American future citizens. Or, maybe I’ll pick some that just sound fun to read.

This is the cover of the most challenged and banned book in America this year. It is a graphic novel, and is a bildungsroman of the author’s journey into adulthood.

I started with Gender Queer because there was a news story about the author, Maia Kobabe, attending a school board meeting where banning the book was on the agenda.

The American Library Association provides a map on their web site showing the most frequently challenged books in each state. New Jersey (where I live): Gender Queer. Texas and Florida (the states that win the contest of challenging the most books): The Bluest Eye. Ohio: It’s Perfectly Normal. I started with these, and also added two more to my list that have been challenged: The Handmaid’s Tale and Between the World and Me. More will be added as time goes on, I’m sure. These cover the most frequently banned topics of sex, race relations, and LGBTQ+ issues. (The LGBTQ+ ones are really about sex, so I guess Americans are focused on it.)

In Utah, the Bible was officially challenged. I have already read this one, so I am not going to go back to read it again as part of this project. I can understand why it might be banned; there are all sorts of corrupting ideas in it, like sex, murder, treachery, adultery, slavery, slaughtering women and children, and so on. Not to mention a future apocalypse that scares the pants off me, so I can’t imagine what a young mind would think of it.

To illustrate with a Bible story, Adam and Eve are the only people on earth, and they then have two sons. Then one of the sons has sex with his wife for the purpose of procreation; wouldn’t she have to have been his sister? Ewww. Feel free to come up with a better example if you don’t like that one, but it has the virtue of being right at the start of the whole book. Did I mention the part where they talk about Noah being drunk and naked in front of his kids?

Sorry, I was just kidding about thinking that the Bible should be banned, of course it should be part of American children’s literacy education! Although I wasn’t kidding about the challenge in Utah, which really did happen.

In any event, stay tuned for my next post where I will report back on reading a banned book. Wish me luck.
JFK Assassination

November 22nd, 2023
Very few who read this or thought about it believed its conclusion

30 years ago today in 1963, JFK was fatally shot in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Within a few weeks, President Johnson signed executive order 11130 to create a Presidential Commission, popularly known as the “Warren Commission,” charged with investigating what happened, who did it, and why. They produced a report¹ concluding that a single person, acting alone, committed the crime. By 1976 after people had a chance to read the and to digest the report, only 11% of Americans polled by Gallup believed this conclusion.

In 1978, Congress chartered another commission, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)², to further sift the evidence. The HSCA concluded that while Lee Harvey Oswald fired shots that struck the President, others were involved who fired shots from in front of the motorcade, that there was a conspiracy, but that evidence was not adequate to demonstrate who the other people or organizations were (although organized crime figures were suspected).

The whole thing is strange. The materials supporting the Warren conclusion were declared to be secret and to this day, 60 years later, have not been fully revealed to the public.

I have a personal interest in this controversy because in 1979 I worked with G. Robert Blakey, the chief Counsel to the HSCA. I was working on a project under contract with a Federal Agency to explore the feasibility of associative data queries, which was an early technical precursor to what we now know as Google search (although unrelated to Google). My project with him was not about the Kennedy assassination, but we discussed it during our down times. He thought the Chicago mob did it, and that they had set up Oswald as a patsy. The mob did not want Attorney General Bobby Kennedy to go after them.

The other primary theory is that CIA, with help from some members of the FBI, was behind it because they did not want Kennedy to curtail our involvement in the Vietnam war. Allen Dulles, a key member of the Commission, was the head of the CIA at the time, and had tight control over what evidence was considered by the Warren Commission. The CIA was uniquely in a position to hide evidence. I am partial to this explanation today, but you can pick your favorite. All any of us know for sure is that the Warren Commission conclusion is not credible.
1. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report ↩︎
2. https://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/hsca/contents_hsca_report.htm ↩︎
And we are blaming AI for this

November 21st, 2023

Speaking of medical debt news, a class action lawsuit was just filed in Federal Court in Minnesota alleging that United Healthcare – my supplemental Medicare provider – used an AI algorithm, “nH Predict,” to reject claims under Medicare Advantage policies for post acute-care payments. The suit claims that the AI model is faulty 90% of the time, incorrectly denying care to the claimants and to others in the class.

To illustrate, a Medicare patient who is admitted to a hospital for a stroke for at least three days is entitled to up to 100 days of post-acute care in a rehab or skilled nursing facility. The length of stay within these guidelines is required to be determined by the patient’s physician. UnitedHealthcare is accused of cutting the rehab payments after, say an arbitrary 14 days per the nH Predict model, but falsely telling the patient that the discharge decision is due to Medicare rules. The company has set up targets for adherence to their AI model, and employees who deviate more than 1% from the model prediction are subject to being fired.

The suit further states that UnitedHealthcare knows that patients almost never dispute coverage decisions (they say disputes happen in only .02% of denials), and so the company simply pockets the premiums without paying for covered services. The company also saves money because use of the AI model eliminates the time and expense of individual review of coverage claims by medical professionals. How wonderful for them!

The actual text of the suit can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/bdhyhs4e. Please be aware that this case has not yet been adjudicated by the justice system, and therefore there is not yet a determination of guilt or innocence on the part of the defendant, United HealthCare Group, Inc. IMHO, there is no substitute for reading the actual text of the case, which I did. Note that many insurance claims under Medicare Advantage are paid promptly and in full; this suit only alleges a problem with a single provider where they are using a computer model in lieu of medical review of post-acute care needs.

From the so-called Joe Namath ad: “The Medicare Coverage Helpline is not affiliated with nor acting on behalf of any Government program or agency. The Medicare Coverage Helpline is a For-Profit Lead Generation campaign.” This text is included at the end, in very small print.

The case is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, if the allegations are true, then a great many Americans who have chosen a Medicare Advantage plan are at risk of financial harm should they need this type of expensive care. The two plaintiffs each paid on the order of $150,000 out of pocket for post-acute care services that they say should have been covered by their insurance policy. Most Americans can’t afford to do this; either they let the patient die, or they deplete all of their assets and declare bankruptcy. These are bad things.

The second thing that is interesting here is that AI is being given a bad name. There is nothing special about an “artificially intelligent” computer vs a “traditionally intelligent” one in this case; at its heart, someone wrote a program that takes millions of prior cases and develops averages for how much they cost, based on a complex series of parameters. Length of stay decisions are then based on these averages instead of upon the individual medical situations. The authors of the model will likely claim that these averages are very good ones, but it doesn’t really matter since Medicare does not allow insurers to discharge based solely on a computer model of past cases.

And finally, this is an important case because whether UnitedHealthCare Group wins or loses, it would impact millions of American seniors. More than half of Medicare enrollees are currently in an Advantage plan, amounting to around 30 million people. If the insurance company prevails, it will be a green light to use secret computer programs to deny coverage to those people who would otherwise qualify for services under the law. If the insurance company loses, then the world of Medicare Advantage will fundamentally change in a good way for patients. I will stay tuned.