Hoskinson: US Healthcare is a Circus, and We’re the Clowns 🎪💊

Coindesk News

What to know:

Hoskinson’s clinic in Gillette, Wyoming, serves 15,000 patients and runs on a patient-first, pay-if-you-can model. 🏥💸
He says the U.S. healthcare system is filled with perverse incentives that reward chronic illness. 🤡💉
AI agents and future blockchain integrations could enable more private, personalized, and scalable care. 🤖🔗

Well, slap my knee and call me astonished! Charles Hoskinson, the brain behind Cardano and a co-founder of Ethereum, has declared the American healthcare system a “hot mess”-his words, not mine, though I’d have said it with more twang. 🤠 According to him, it’s not broken; it’s working exactly as intended, which is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. 🌊⛵

“Healthcare is just fucked in America. It’s just fucked. Everybody knows it’s true,” Hoskinson drawled in an interview with CoinDesk TV at the Rare Evo conference in Las Vegas. “Yet they all try to keep this circus going because it’s just too profitable.” 🎪💰

But ol’ Charlie ain’t just talkin’; he’s puttin’ his money where his mouth is-$200 million, to be exact, into a medical center in Gillette, Wyoming, that serves about one-third of the town’s population. His motto? “If they can’t pay, don’t charge ’em.” 🤑🙌

The ‘Horrible’ Problem

So, what’s got Hoskinson’s dander up? According to him, it’s how doctors are paid. “All the financial incentives are just horrible and wrong inside healthcare,” he said, using an example of how doctors are incentivized to treat patients like they’re on an assembly line, regardless of their needs. 🚗⚰️

“Let’s say you’re 75 years old, got more ailments than a mule, and you’re just not feelin’ good… Your doctor will be paid the exact same amount to see you as they would to see a 16-year-old girl with a UTI who just needs five minutes and some antibiotics.” 🧓👧

That system, he reckons, discourages coordination, conversation, and long-term planning. “They’ve got every incentive to keep you as sick as possible for as long as possible, ‘cause they’ve got chronic treatments for all those ailments,” Hoskinson claimed. 🩺💸

And where’d he get this scathing insight? “Because my dad’s a doctor, my brother’s a doctor. Grandfather was a doctor, uncle’s a doctor,” he said. 🩺👨‍👨‍👦‍👦

The Patient-Centric Solution

To fix this mess, Hoskinson suggests building a facility centered around the patient, not billing codes or bureaucracies, and using cutting-edge technologies like AI and blockchain. 🤖🔗

“Let’s build a clinic where we put the patient at the center. We build care teams, we use AI, and we do everything in our power to make it patient-centered care that’s affordable.” 🏥💖

AI, in this new system, will support-not replace-physicians. “Every day it can digest the totality of all medical knowledge and give an updated care plan at the beginning of the day to the provider.” 📚🤖

The system can catch “subtle cues in the patient history” and help with real-time auditing. He also described plans for AI tools that can flag drug-to-drug interactions, transcribe patient visits, and eventually act as an “AI companion” to help folks interpret food labels, medications, and supplements. 🧪📝

Blockchain might also play a role, using selective disclosure and zero-knowledge technology to verify facts without exposing personal details. “You can satisfy the intent without revealing the underlying customer,” he said. 🔗🔒

And here’s the kicker: he plans to open-source the entire model. “We’re not here to make money off of [it],” Hoskinson said. “The goal is to get that care system out there.” 🌍🤝

He’s also pushin’ for a broader policy reset. “Health insurance should be the same way you buy it in case you get really fuckin’ sick,” Hoskinson said. “It makes no sense to say it’s there for a paper cut or birth control.” 🩹🤰

But this new model is facin’ pushback from the traditional medical system. “The hospital there is tryin’ to kill us,” he alleges. “They won’t credential our doctors. It takes six months to a year to get credentials. I bring in a world-famous surgeon, and they won’t give ‘em credentials.” 🏥⚔️

While Hoskinson’s fight might be a David versus Goliath scenario, he sees it as part of his family’s legacy. “I put $200 million of my own money into this clinic, and we’ve been buildin’ for three years. I legitimately wanna solve this problem,” he said. “It’s my legacy and the family’s legacy-the single most important thing in America.” 🏆👨‍👨‍👦‍👦

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