There's been a flurry of AI-related news this week, including in healthcare. See a December 12, 2025, article at Fierce Healthcare where Republican policy expert Joe Grogan interviews HHS Deputy Secretary O'Neill on the administration's vision for AI in healthcare.
At HHS, O’Neill is looking for lighter-touch AI regulation at HHS, arguing FDA and CMS delays are distorting markets, not protecting patients. He highlights a real behavioral consequence: companies deliberately avoid FDA pathways, market as consumer tools, then backfill regulation later—an inefficiency he wants to eliminate via earlier regulatory clarity. HHS is operationalizing this stance through paired ACCESS (CMS reimbursement) and TEMPO (FDA regulatory deferral) models. Internally, HHS has already deployed multiple LLMs agency-wide and is using AI to detect weak signals across datasets. Notably, O’Neill rejects industry intermediaries (e.g., CHAI), inviting direct regulator–company engagement instead.
O'Neill served in the GW Bush administration (2004-2008), then shifted to Silicon Valley including CEO of the Thiel Foundation.
Grogan as Podcast Host: DC EKG
Joe Grogan is a Republican health policy expert who worked in biopharma government affairs and in the "Trump I" White House. More recently he's been a leader with Paragon Health Institute and Fire Arrow LLC. For over a year, Grogan has hosted the podcast "DC EKG."
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-dc-ekg-107541606/
Fixing Obamacare Without Repeal: Tony LoSasso on Competition, Subsidies & Fiscal Reality
December 10, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of DC EKG with Joe Grogan: A Healthcare Policy Podcast, Joe sits down with health economist Tony LoSasso to dissect what serious, workable Obamacare reforms could look like without blowing up the Affordable Care Act entirely. They dig into the structure of healthcare subsidies, why current premium tax credits dull price sensitivity, and how that undermines insurance competition, drives up healthcare costs, and threatens the law's fiscal sustainability. Tony lays out a path to modernize the ACA with defined-contribution-style subsidies, patient-directed “health freedom” accounts, and targeted support for people with preexisting conditions through high-risk pools, rather than hiding transfer programs inside community-rated premiums. Along the way, they tackle essential health benefits, community rating, Medicare pricing, certificate-of-need laws, and growing hospital market concentration, and ask what a real bipartisan healthcare reform deal might look like in today’s political climate.
Inside the Business of American Healthcare with Wharton’s Dr. Lawton Burns
August 24, 2025 • 55 mins
Join host Joe Grogan for an exclusive masterclass with Dr. Robert Burns, James Joo-Jin Kim Professor of Health Care Management at the Wharton School. A nationally recognized expert on the U.S. healthcare system, Dr. Burns unpacks the complex forces driving healthcare costs. With a background in sociology, anthropology, and decades of research, Dr. Burns reveals why so many healthcare reforms fail, what policymakers and business leaders get wrong, and how the U.S. healthcare ecosystem really works behind the headlines. If you’ve ever wondered why American healthcare is so expensive, and what can actually be done about it, this episode is a must-listen.