Anyone who uses Medicare or has a loved one on Medicare may soon see necessary medical procedures and treatments denied based on Artificial Intelligence.

Medicare is health insurance for people aged 65 or older. Some younger people are eligible to receive the coverage if they have a disability, End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), or ALS. Almost 69 million Americans depend on the federally-funded program for their health insurance needs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has introduced a pilot program, Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR), that will require recipients of Original Medicare to receive prior approval before obtaining access to certain medical services, as determined by AI starting January 1, 2026 in six states.

The WISeR program will employ private companies to test if AI can handle the prior authorization process used to determine if a recipient of Original Medicare, a plan also known as Traditional Medicare, is eligible for funding for a health service. 

Prior Authorization is already a significant impediment to care for patients. Doctors have to spend time on these requests, devote energy to fight denials, and money to employ staff to deal with this. The WISeR program will only make it a million times worse.

In the WISeR program, the private AI companies will be rewarded based on the “effectiveness of their technology solutions” for reducing spending on "medically unnecessary" or non-covered services. The companies will receive a percentage of the savings attributed to their reduction of wasteful or inappropriate care for each selected service.  In other words, the more care the companies and their AI algorithms deny, the more money they make.

Do you want you or your loved one's medical care to be denied by an algorithm and unable to receive necessary medical services as determined by their doctor?  Do not allow AI to determine what medical procedures Medicare will or will not cover, especially when private companies are incentivized to deny as many claims as possible to increase their bottom line.

Millions of Americans will suffer and die unnecessarily because of the WISeR program.  Don't let AI deny access to life saving medical treatments.

Sign this petition NOW to prevent the needless suffering for everyone in your life who uses Medicare!

This petition will be sent to Mehmet Oz, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and Robert Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services.