“We are this planet’s most adaptable creatures.” This could be mistaken for a line spoken by the late great James Earl Jones as Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion King. Instead, it was spoken by Oprah Winfrey in last night’s tv special on artificial intelligence – as if that would soothe the nervousness about this new tech that is freaking everyone out. One way to tell if something is a big deal is when Oprah puts on a TV special about it. Another way to tell is when people with loads of money invest in it. We follow the money in the One Thoughtful Paragraph.
Other news about money in health care this week:
- The Ground Ambulance and Patient Billing Advisory Committee, a special committee chartered by Congress under the No Surprises Act, sent its report to Congress with recommendations on how to reduce surprise billing from ground ambulances.
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s latest report on debt collection includes a focus on medical debt, such as when medical debt collectors attempt to collect medical bills already paid for by financial assistance programs. Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Larry Levitt also waxed about medical debt in a JAMA Health Forum article.
- Bain Capital Life Sciences, a private equity firm, raised $3B for its fourth fund.
“I find your lack of faith disturbing.” You might think that this was a response by Sam Altman or Bill Gates in response to Oprah’s skepticism about AI in her TV special last night. Instead, this is a line from Star Wars by James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. Fun fact: a few years ago, James Earl Jones made a deal with Ukrainian firm “Respeecher” to clone his famous voice using AI for Darth Vader purposes in a future Disney+ series. We’re not that surprised by the AI-is-everywhere truth anymore – the Maverick team is spending most of its time these days talking about AI in healthcare. This week, we teamed up with the Consumer Technology Association and brought together lots of venture capital firms to understand the regulatory landscape in this space. We also read with great interest the Flare Capital report about more than 4,000 healthcare AI venture capital deals across a decade. The most valuable startups, according to Flare, were pairing humans with AI to better coordinate care. Just like Oprah, we are both incredibly excited and totally nervous about this epic shift in our society. It reminds us of when James Earl Jones, as King Jaffe Joffer in Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America movie, says, “So you see, my son, there is a very fine line between love and nausea.”
