Latest news with #BrettGuthrie
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
GOP sneaks 10-year halt to State-driven AI regulation into budget bill
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. House republicans are trying to sneak a 10-year pause on AI regulation into the Budget Reconciliation bill. Representative Brett Guthrie (R-KY), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, introduced a provision to the Budget Reconciliation bill last Sunday night that will prevent states and local governments from enforcing any legislation on AI. According to 404 Media, this limitation was inserted into an already controversial bill and would take away the power of individual states to regulate artificial intelligence as they would see fit. The text of the proposal, which is under Title IV, Subtitle C, Part 2c of the bill, says, 'In general — except as provided in paragraph (2), no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act.' This means that states will lose power over anything related to AI, as they cannot implement their own rules and must follow the federal directive. Several states have already enacted laws that control the use of AI in their respective territories. For example, California mandates that health care providers must tell their patients if they use generative AI to communicate with them. Furthermore, AI developers in the state must document and publicly share the information about the data they used to train their models — a crucial law to help prevent AI companies from stealing copyrighted data. New York also requires businesses that use AI for hiring to conduct audits of their tools to avoid any bias. The bill's text covers a broad spectrum of AI, including models, systems, and even 'automated decision systems'. This means that both new AI models and old algorithms that can make automated decisions are covered by the federal law. Many AI and tech companies have been trying to get closer to the new administration. Several key personalities involved in AI have become key members of the administration, including Elon Musk, former PayPal COO David Sacks, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who has invested in Facebook, Twitter, and OpenAI. The current government has also suspended or reversed former President Biden's executive orders aimed at reducing the threat of uncontrolled AI development. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
E&E News
09-06-2025
- Business
- E&E News
House Republicans plan scrutiny of Clean Air Act rules
House Republicans are again taking aim at the Clean Air Act, citing the need to bolster the United States' global competitiveness. The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment will hold a hearing this week titled 'Short-Circuiting Progress: How the Clean Air Act Impacts Building Necessary Infrastructure and Onshoring American Innovation.' 'American innovation should not be stifled by unreasonable government red tape and regulatory overreach,' said committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and subcommittee Chair Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) in a statement. Advertisement The hearing will be the latest in recent years to focus on various aspects of the landmark environmental law, which was last amended in 1990.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
US health care is rife with high costs and deep inequities, and that's no accident
House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., left, and ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., right, speak during a markup of Medicaid budget cuts, May 13, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by) A few years ago, a student in my history of public health course asked why her mother couldn't afford insulin without insurance, despite having a full-time job. I told her what I've come to believe: The U.S. health care system was deliberately built this way. People often hear that health care in America is dysfunctional — too expensive, too complex and too inequitable. But dysfunction implies failure. What if the real problem is that the system is functioning exactly as it was designed to? Understanding this legacy is key to explaining not only why reform has failed repeatedly, but why change remains so difficult. I am a historian of public health with experience researching oral health access and health care disparities in the Deep South. My work focuses on how historical policy choices continue to shape the systems we rely on today. By tracing the roots of today's system and all its problems, it's easier to understand why American health care looks the way it does and what it will take to reform it into a system that provides high-quality, affordable care for all. Only by confronting how profit, politics and prejudice have shaped the current system can Americans imagine and demand something different. My research and that of many others show that today's high costs, deep inequities and fragmented care are predictable features developed from decades of policy choices that prioritized profit over people, entrenched racial and regional hierarchies, and treated health care as a commodity rather than a public good. Over the past century, U.S. health care developed not from a shared vision of universal care, but from compromises that prioritized private markets, protected racial hierarchies and elevated individual responsibility over collective well-being. Employer-based insurance emerged in the 1940s, not from a commitment to worker health but from a tax policy workaround during wartime wage freezes. The federal government allowed employers to offer health benefits tax-free, incentivizing coverage while sidestepping nationalized care. This decision bound health access to employment status, a structure that is still dominant today. In contrast, many other countries with employer-provided insurance pair it with robust public options, ensuring that access is not tied solely to a job. In 1965, Medicare and Medicaid programs greatly expanded public health infrastructure. Unfortunately, they also reinforced and deepened existing inequalities. Medicare, a federally administered program for people over 64, primarily benefited wealthier Americans who had access to stable, formal employment and employer-based insurance during their working years. Medicaid, designed by Congress as a joint federal-state program, is aimed at the poor, including many people with disabilities. The combination of federal and state oversight resulted in 50 different programs with widely variable eligibility, coverage and quality. Southern lawmakers, in particular, fought for this decentralization. Fearing federal oversight of public health spending and civil rights enforcement, they sought to maintain control over who received benefits. Historians have shown that these efforts were primarily designed to restrict access to health care benefits along racial lines during the Jim Crow period of time. Today, that legacy is painfully visible. States that chose not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are overwhelmingly located in the South and include several with large Black populations. Nearly 1 in 4 uninsured Black adults are uninsured because they fall into the coverage gap – unable to access affordable health insurance – they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to receive subsidies through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. The system's architecture also discourages care aimed at prevention. Because Medicaid's scope is limited and inconsistent, preventive care screenings, dental cleanings and chronic disease management often fall through the cracks. That leads to costlier, later-stage care that further burdens hospitals and patients alike. Meanwhile, cultural attitudes around concepts like 'rugged individualism' and 'freedom of choice' have long been deployed to resist public solutions. In the postwar decades, while European nations built national health care systems, the U.S. reinforced a market-driven approach. Publicly funded systems were increasingly portrayed by American politicians and industry leaders as threats to individual freedom – often dismissed as 'socialized medicine' or signs of creeping socialism. In 1961, for example, Ronald Reagan recorded a 10-minute LP titled 'Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine,' which was distributed by the American Medical Association as part of a national effort to block Medicare. The health care system's administrative complexity ballooned beginning in the 1960s, driven by the rise of state-run Medicaid programs, private insurers and increasingly fragmented billing systems. Patients were expected to navigate opaque billing codes, networks and formularies, all while trying to treat, manage and prevent illness. In my view, and that of other scholars, this isn't accidental but rather a form of profitable confusion built into the system to benefit insurers and intermediaries. Even well-meaning reforms have been built atop this structure. The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, expanded access to health insurance but preserved many of the system's underlying inequities. And by subsidizing private insurers rather than creating a public option, the law reinforced the central role of private companies in the health care system. The public option – a government-run insurance plan intended to compete with private insurers and expand coverage – was ultimately stripped from the Affordable Care Act during negotiations due to political opposition from both Republicans and moderate Democrats. When the U.S. Supreme Court made it optional in 2012 for states to offer expanded Medicaid coverage to low-income adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, it amplified the very inequalities that the ACA sought to reduce. These decisions have consequences. In states like Alabama, an estimated 220,000 adults remain uninsured due to the Medicaid coverage gap – the most recent year for which reliable data is available – highlighting the ongoing impact of the state's refusal to expand Medicaid. In addition, rural hospitals have closed, patients forgo care, and entire counties lack practicing OB/GYNs or dentists. And when people do get care – especially in states where many remain uninsured – they can amass medical debt that can upend their lives. All of this is compounded by chronic disinvestment in public health. Federal funding for emergency preparedness has declined for years, and local health departments are underfunded and understaffed. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how brittle the infrastructure is – especially in low-income and rural communities, where overwhelmed clinics, delayed testing, limited hospital capacity, and higher mortality rates exposed the deadly consequences of neglect. Change is hard not because reformers haven't tried before, but because the system serves the very interests it was designed to serve. Insurers profit from obscurity – networks that shift, formularies that confuse, billing codes that few can decipher. Providers profit from a fee-for-service model that rewards quantity over quality, procedure over prevention. Politicians reap campaign contributions and avoid blame through delegation, diffusion and plausible deniability. This is not an accidental web of dysfunction. It is a system that transforms complexity into capital, bureaucracy into barriers. Patients – especially the uninsured and underinsured – are left to make impossible choices: delay treatment or take on debt, ration medication or skip checkups, trust the health care system or go without. Meanwhile, I believe the rhetoric of choice and freedom disguises how constrained most people's options really are. Other countries show us that alternatives are possible. Systems in Germany, France and Canada vary widely in structure, but all prioritize universal access and transparency. Understanding what the U.S. health care system is designed to do – rather than assuming it is failing unintentionally – is a necessary first step toward considering meaningful change. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Senate candidate Colonel Pamela Stevenson visits Owensboro for town hall event
OWENSBORO, Ky. (WEHT) — A democratic candidate for the U.S Senate stopped by Owensboro today to speak with constituents during a special town hall event. Colonel Pamela Stevenson currently serves as Kentucky's House Minority Leader and is running for Republican Mitch McConnell's seat. 'People are hungry to have someone that serves them…the energy was incredible,' Stevenson says. Hosted by Indivisible Owensboro, the town hall allowed constituents to ask elected officials about hot-button issues. Several elected officials were invited to attend, including Stevenson, Senator Rand Paul, Representative Brett Guthrie, and Senator Mitch McConnell. Stevenson was the only one who showed up. Over 20 people attended, including Donna Haynes. 'This started out to try to get some answers. We wanted it to be a peaceful discussion with our elected officials about what they did, why they did it, and how it affects us,' Haynes says. Constituents asked questions about several issues, including healthcare. One person asked, 'What are your thoughts about Trump's repeated statements to repeal or replace the Affordable Care Act?' 'As far as I can tell, if you are human, you need health care. They {the audience} want to make sure the elderly are taken care of, they want to have access to health care, and they want to make sure kids eat,' Stevenson says. Constituents also asked questions about Job Corps. The second largest one in the country is located in Morganfield. The U.S Department of Labor announced plans to eliminate Job Corps Centers nationwide last week due to proposed budget cuts by the Trump Administration. 'We have to do a better job building up rural counties. No matter where you live in Kentucky, you have to have access to health care and a good job to take care of your family. We have to make sure that that happens,' Stevenson says. A federal judge filed a motion for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York today to block the closures today. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
E&E News
04-06-2025
- Business
- E&E News
House panel sets vote on energy, permitting bills
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will vote this week on legislation to address long-held Republican concerns around electric reliability. Lawmakers discussed the 13 bills during a hearing in April. They focus heavily on easing permitting for fossil fuel and nuclear infrastructure. 'Over the past several months, our Committee has heard from energy producers, grid operators, and experts on [artificial intelligence] that have discussed the need to produce more baseload power,' said E&C Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Energy Subcommittee Chair Bob Latta (R-Ohio) about the bills. '[These] specific policy proposals would help achieve this goal and ensure American energy dominance.' Advertisement Republicans believe baseload energy sources — unlike wind and solar — can better allow the U.S. to meet power demand. But Democrats expressed opposition to almost all the bills during April's hearing, wanting more attention for renewables.
