Regulations from Obamacare and under the Biden administration not only increased the cost of health care, they’ve also making it more difficult to advance artificial intelligence and other technology in medicine, experts told a House panel Wednesday. 

The regulations amount to “layers of permission” for health data, said Dr. Ziad Obermeyer, Blue Cross of California Distinguished Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. 

“When I started this work, it was so difficult to get the data that we needed here in the United States that I ended up doing this research in Sweden,” Obermeyer said at a joint hearing of two House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittees. “That process took 10 years, but it was still faster than doing it here, despite European data regulations.”

“The major culprit here is the many layers of permissions and approvals required to touch health data,” Obermeyer continued. 

During the hearing, Rep. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., asked Obermeyer, “If artificial intelligence becomes significantly integrated into medical practice, what impact should we expect on the health care workforce?”

Obermeyer said it would change the nature of work, but wouldn’t have the negative impact some anticipate. 

“What we’ve learned from the history of automation and technology adoption is that it doesn’t necessarily eliminate jobs—it actually changes the nature of those jobs,” he said. “So, doctors will start to need to interact with these tools and learn from them. And I think they’ll start to augment the capabilities of especially nurses, community health workers, and others who can now have access to cutting edge technology applied to the data from patients to help them make better decisions.”

Donalds asked, “Do you think that the Affordable Care Act’s regulatory framework allows for this type of internal innovation in the health care system?”

Obermeyer said he couldn’t speak directly to Obamacare, but could talk about regulation more broadly. 

“I think right now there are not very strong incentives for a lot of health systems to adopt this AI technology,” he said. “I think the access program that was recently announced from [the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services] is a good start in that direction by incentivizing preventive care, augmented by technology.”

He said AI technology could “drives lower costs” and “detects the kinds of fraud, waste and abuse that you mentioned earlier.”

The two panels were the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs and the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services.

Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, asked Chris Jacobs, founder of Juniper Research Group, about the Affordable Care Act.

“Obamacare was sold to the American people as a program that would drive down premiums,” he said. “I think the number that was thrown out by President Obama at the time was $2,500. Has that promise come to fruition?”

Premiums on individual health insurance policies on the Affordable Care Act more than doubled in the law’s first four years, Jacobs said. 

“That’s primarily because of the regulatory mandates that the law imposed,” Jacobs told the House panel. “And prices have continued, premiums have continued to increase substantially, and they continue to increase substantially, more so on the exchanges than for employer sponsored coverage.”

Gill followed, “So you would say that Obamacare didn’t slow the growth of premiums in any meaningful way?”

Jacobs said, “If anything, quite the contrary.”

The post How Obama, Biden Regulations Slowed Technology Growth in Health Care appeared first on The Daily Signal.