Guest Post: If You Can't Afford a Doctor, Big Tech Has a “Solution”
How Republicans broke healthcare, Big Tech monetized the damage, and why AI medicine is not the answer
Periodically, Let’s Address This hosts scholars and experts in their respective field of human rights. Today’s piece is a guest post from public health experts Pari and Eve. They are the hosts of the Women in America podcast and the writers behind Repro Ready, a vital Substack newsletter focused on reproductive rights, healthcare access, and action-oriented organizing. If you or anyone you know has ever used AI or ChatGPT to diagnose a health issue, you’ll want to read this. Let’s Address This.
What My Doctor Told Me About AI Medicine
By: Women in America
I went to the doctor this morning. As a new patient, there was a six week wait to secure an appointment with her. Luckily, my issue wasn’t urgent but if it was I would’ve been f*cked. I probably would’ve ended up at urgent care or the ER which would’ve cost me a fortune even with good insurance.
During my appointment, I asked the doctor a question about the long term effects of a medication and she politely laughed and asked if I had looked that up on ChatGPT. I had indeed Googled it although not through AI, I sheepishly admitted this to her. She corrected the information I had found and reiterated that AI is wrong 60% of the time. Better to rely on a trained provider than AI University, she said.
This whole conversation was timely given how Republicans are currently trying to rollback health insurance subsidies to make accessing health care less affordable. It’s even more timely because OpenAI just announced the launch of ChatGPT Health which is an open source AI feature that asks you to submit your medical records and link your health apps for “personalized insights”.
Coincidence? Never. Big tech is capitalizing on Republicans making healthcare unaffordable by offering a “free” alternative of AI medicine.
We all know the old adage though: nothing in life is free. Let’s dive in.
What ChatGPT Health Actually Wants From You
ChatGPT Health isn’t a regular chatbot. It’s a specialized system that requests access to your medical records, health apps, fitness trackers, period tracking information, and mental health logs. It will take anything and everything you’re willing to upload.
In exchange, it promises “personalized insights” about your health. It’ll answer questions about symptoms, explain conditions, and offer guidance on medications.
But here’s what that really means: You’re uploading your complete health history to a for-profit tech company so their algorithm (wrong up to 60% of the time) can give you medical advice. And you’re doing it because the alternative is waiting six weeks for an appointment, paying thousands for an ER visit, or never getting care at all.
Over 40 million people already ask ChatGPT health questions daily, not because they trust its accuracy, but because they’re desperate and it’s free.
The GOP’s Healthcare Demolition Project
Republicans are actively engineering this crisis. They’re rolling back health insurance subsidies that millions depend on, refused Medicaid expansion in multiple states, spent years trying to gut the Affordable Care Act, and are restricting coverage for reproductive healthcare, gender-affirming care, and preventive services.
Make healthcare so expensive and inaccessible that people have no choice but to seek alternatives. Silicon Valley arrives on cue, ready to monetize that desperation.
My six-week wait is the best case scenario. I also have insurance. Millions of Americans face the choice between rent and a doctor’s visit, between groceries and medications. Now they’re being offered a third option: give all your health data to OpenAI and let the chatbot figure it out.
Your Health Data Is the Product
When you upload your medical records to ChatGPT Health, you’re handing over your most private information to a company that profits from data.
Every symptom. Every medication. Every mental health struggle. Every pregnancy test. Every period. All collected, and in our current legal landscape, all weaponizable.
We’re living in post-Roe America where period tracking apps become evidence in criminal prosecutions, where states criminalize pregnancy outcomes, where seeking abortion care gets you investigated. And we’re supposed to trust uploading our health histories to a private tech company is safe?
They will sell your data to brokers. Use it to inform insurance decisions and enable employment discrimination. Your data can be subpoenaed, hacked, or leaked. NONE OF THIS IS PROTECTED BY HIPAA.
When Wrong Answers Have Real Consequences
AI being wrong up to 60% of the time should be disqualifying. You wouldn’t fly on a plane that crashes half the time or take medication that fails 60% of patients.
But when you can’t afford a real doctor, a chatbot starts looking like your best option.
For people with insurance and access to care, ChatGPT Health might be a supplement. For the millions Republicans are pricing out of healthcare, it becomes their primary care provider. And when ChatGPT misses heart attack symptoms, gives dangerous drug interaction advice, or fails to recognize a medical emergency, people die.
Big Tech Profits From Republican Policy Violence
OpenAI launching ChatGPT Health now, as Republicans dismantle healthcare access, isn’t a coincidence. It’s a business model built on human suffering, profiting from a crisis one political party deliberately sustains.
Every person consulting AI instead of a doctor is a policy failure. OpenAI isn’t benevolently solving the healthcare crisis. They’re offering “free” solutions to extract comprehensive health data from millions of desperate people.
What We Actually Need
We don’t need ChatGPT Health. We need universal healthcare and a system where people can afford actual doctors instead of consulting algorithms with worse accuracy than a Magic 8-Ball.
We need politicians who expand access instead of restricting it. We need insurance that covers care instead of bankrupting people. We need a world where “I can’t afford to see a doctor” is no longer a social norm.
Until then, Silicon Valley will keep selling “solutions” to problems they’re happy to see persist. There’s no money in fixing healthcare access, but plenty of profit in harvesting data while people suffer.
Nothing in life is free. And what we’re paying for ChatGPT Health with our privacy, our safety, and our lives; a price far more than any of us should ever have to afford.
 | A guest post by
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In an educated compassionate nation (like most of Europe) we would have universal health care. Now the USA has a medical system controlled by insurance companies who make money killing people and not paying doctors.
In a sane world scams like this would be illegal.