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Robotics, AI and the Economic destruction of the US and Medical

A

Arthur Hanson

Well-known member
Health care in which the US ranked 37th until they had web masters manipulate the figures is set to go from 17% of the economy to 32% by 2030 (they did this after I had a commentary published in Barrons that they reviewed for six weeks before verifying its accuracy. This is enough to torpedo the entire US economy with the average corporate profit margin of only 7.7%. AI/ML and robotics offer our only hope from keeping the economy from literally imploding. AI/ML and advanced robotics offer the only hope not only for medical research, but the ability to deliver quality health care at a price that won't devastate the US economy. From diagnostics to robotic surgery the tech sector is still in its very early stages and offers the only hope of the US economy imploding from soaring medical costs for low quality medical. AI/ML and advanced robotics offer the only hope of saving the US economy, but the massive special interest in the established medical system need to be overcome. Any thoughts, comments or additions sought and welcome.

www.nature.com

Levels of autonomy in FDA-cleared surgical robots: a systematic review - npj Digital Medicine

The integration of robotics in surgery has increased over the past decade, and advances in the autonomous capabilities of surgical robots have paralleled that of assistive and industrial robots. However, classification and regulatory frameworks have not kept pace with the increasing autonomy of...
www.nature.com www.nature.com
 
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I would say the staff at Barron's has access to more sources of information than most. Do your own research and show me where both Barron's and I are mistaken. I welcome any contradictory evidence.
 
The waste in US health benchmarked against other private medicine in G7 is epic .. waste alone is nearly equal to total of Federal income taxes.

But automation is not likely to fix regulatory capture and vertically integrated oligopolies. You need something more like Uber: legal shock troops clearing the way.
 
interestingengineering.com

China's AI-powered robot promises minimally invasive brain surgeries

MicroNeuro ensures surgical safety and frees surgeons from labor-intensive tasks.
interestingengineering.com interestingengineering.com

It looks like the Chinese really want to take the lead in the fast expanding medical robotics market. This could help the Chinese become leaders as they won't have excessive medical costs dragging their economy down. The US already spends twenty cents of every dollar on medical and our population is aging.
 
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Arthur Hanson said:
interestingengineering.com

China's AI-powered robot promises minimally invasive brain surgeries

MicroNeuro ensures surgical safety and frees surgeons from labor-intensive tasks.
interestingengineering.com interestingengineering.com

It looks like the Chinese really want to take the lead in the fast expanding medical robotics market. This could help the Chinese become leaders as they won't have excessive medical costs dragging their economy down. The US already spends twenty cents of every dollar on medical and our population is aging.
Click to expand...
20c on the dollar is a huge amount of lobbying money to resist change and innovation. And lots of well paid jobs at risk (the possibility that some of these people might be better employed doing something more productive is always ignored).

You can also expect resistance to change on the grounds of "safety" and "consumer protection" from the vested interest producers (it's always the producers and unions that advance these arguments and hardly ever the consumers). Always happens when protected, high cost industries are under threat. Happened with low cost airlines (which turned out to be just as safe) and generic drugs (again, no real safety issues).

I imagine it's also easier to adopt these sort of technologies in China where there's less risk of ligitation. Even if the error rate is lower, people still seem to feel happier if there's someone they can sue rather than a robot. But the litigation overhead may itself be a factor in high US healthcare costs.

It feels like we're in complete denial about taking any practical measures to improve healthcare here in the UK. The only option considered is simply throwing more money at it. It's almost as if there's no thinking going on (to paraphrase General Patton).

If it takes China or India to eventually get us to do the right thing, so be it.
 
Tanj said:
The waste in US health benchmarked against other private medicine in G7 is epic .. waste alone is nearly equal to total of Federal income taxes.

But automation is not likely to fix regulatory capture and vertically integrated oligopolies. You need something more like Uber: legal shock troops clearing the way.
Click to expand...
Agree. Robotic surgery isn't going to reduced healthcare costs significantly. The healthcare marketplace is broken. The recent WSJ article detailing the impact of private equity investing in hospitals was depressing reading.
 
milesgehm said:
Agree. Robotic surgery isn't going to reduced healthcare costs significantly. The healthcare marketplace is broken. The recent WSJ article detailing the impact of private equity investing in hospitals was depressing reading.
Click to expand...
Do you see any solutions to this severe problem on the horizon, of will medical costs destroy the US economy as the nation ages? I believe technology properly applied could reduce costs, but individual responsibility also has to play a part. Junk food is actually a bigger threat than recreational drugs.
 
The good thing is that the health system is the most lucrative target for innovation out there, bigger than cloud computing if it can be freed from its regulatory capture. And it will advance so much in other countries that the electorate (who, as you say, are aging) will start to pay attention and want to see improvements. The downside is that entrenched players are very good at playing the FUD games so the public has no idea whether the changes in regulation are good, and the necessary solution - substantial removal of regulation to reveal just the essentials of testing, certifications, published data good and bad, recalls and liability - is very unlikely to pass muster with lobbyists who fund the legislators.

Maybe if one could legislate that insurance companies cannot own health care providers, and that insurance can be paid out for procedures in other countries with mutual certification, that would enable competitive forces to act.
 
Tanj said:
The good thing is that the health system is the most lucrative target for innovation out there, bigger than cloud computing if it can be freed from its regulatory capture. And it will advance so much in other countries that the electorate (who, as you say, are aging) will start to pay attention and want to see improvements. The downside is that entrenched players are very good at playing the FUD games so the public has no idea whether the changes in regulation are good, and the necessary solution - substantial removal of regulation to reveal just the essentials of testing, certifications, published data good and bad, recalls and liability - is very unlikely to pass muster with lobbyists who fund the legislators.

Maybe if one could legislate that insurance companies cannot own health care providers, and that insurance can be paid out for procedures in other countries with mutual certification, that would enable competitive forces to act.
Click to expand...
Companies near the border have offered employees the choice of care in Mexico with no payroll deduction and care in Mexico free of charge. The employees were found to prefer the quality of care they received in Mexico over US care.
 
Arthur Hanson said:
Companies near the border have offered employees the choice of care in Mexico with no payroll deduction and care in Mexico free of charge. The employees were found to prefer the quality of care they received in Mexico over US care.
Click to expand...
Private dental treatment in the UK is now so expensive (and NHS dental treatment very limited and difficult to find) that some people fly out to Eastern Europe for cheaper treatment. Yes, cheaper even after including the flights and a short stay in somewhere like Hungary. The low cost airline brochures even have ads for this. It's not like the UK dentists can claim that the quality in Eastern Europe isn't good enough - a fair chunk of Eastern European dentists are working in the UK too.

You can add professional bodies acting to restrict medical and dental training places (UK doctors have done this in the past) to your list of things that need deregulating. Basically the sort of cartel like behaviour we wouldn't tolerate in our line of business.
 
Any doctor south of the border would destroy his lucrative US practice if using substandard care and drugs. The insurance companies would be very careful to protect their reputation and a lucrative business in most cases. This is a decades long trend and institutions south of the border are more than ever catering to the US market. Also concierges at high end resorts are very careful about who they recommend with online posts so easy to make.
 
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