Health Is Just an AI Prediction

The prednisone for the next MRI is turning into a cluster. I'm trying. No one is helping. The kicker is the new pulm won't give me the steroid refills I usually got. Yes, my asthma is worse than ever, and they're fucking rationing steroids that I'm so careful about taking I've actually had enough pile up to cover medicine's dysfunctions around the MRIs in the past.

Medicine will kill you if you let it.

That's my take away. 

And they'll soon be using AI as the executioner of choice.

Here's me, all positive and seeing the opportunity to use AI to expand access to science and improve outcomes for patients.

What a moron!

I forgot it's about profit.

I was being naive.

To wit, we have this lovely article... https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/13/medicare-advantage-plans-denial-artificial-intelligence/

Unfortunately I'm hitting a hard paywall and can't access it anymore. 

But basically some executive somewhere took data points from 6 million patients and created a database. Somehow there's AI in the mix and what it does is predict when you should be done with rehab or whatever medical whatever.

They then sold the program to a bunch of different insurance companies who quickly implemented it like they'd just won the lottery. (Are any health insurance C-suite execs doctors? Or, if they are doctors, are they all the sociopath ones???)

Predictably, it's harming patients.

As far as I can tell/recall, the system doesn't take inputs from the actual patient, and you'll see this in the bit of the article that shows:

"An algorithm, not a doctor, predicted a rapid recovery for Frances Walter, an 85-year-old Wisconsin woman with a shattered left shoulder and an allergy to pain medicine. In 16.6 days, it estimated, she would be ready to leave her nursing home."

Clearly, the data set gives no thought to medication allergies. When I started this post, I had NO idea this would all link so well with my issues trying to get prednisone, but yes, in general there's a huge disconnect when it comes to allergies and medical work flows and I'm not surprised it was a dumpster fire for this patient.

They were sent home even though they couldn't walk, couldn't care for themselves, and had extreme untreated pain. The AI had spoken, and like a God, its commandments must be obeyed. Gotta keep the spice flowing no matter who it hurts (that's a Dune reference in case you didn't know).

The system was then deployed to Medicare Advantage patients and again, predictably, it caused a lot of harm.

This sociopathic stupidity started in 2019*, so I imagine the pandemic slowed down the lawsuits that need to be filed.

But if you had any illusions that medicine won't kill or maim you in the feral quest for profit or that they won't use AI to do it...

Our health is just a profit multiplier to them.

And those of you with universal health care systems...don't be so quick to think you're safe. The pressure to cut costs--because humans constantly create systems with inherent resource scarcity--generates the same economic pressures as profit does. You won't go bankrupt, but they'll still kill or maim you just the same. 

Your health is a chance to cut costs to them.

*Which, again, why the fuck are we using 2019 science in a world where covid has fucked the entire substrate of health? Why are we assuming everything will be like it was? My lungs are worse. My nervous system is wild. Covid seems to be kickstarting my tumors, accelerating various end games. I have NO idea how I'm going to do with my foot surgery...