Government Shutdown Ripples Through Health Care Sector

0:00What if data didn't sit still? What if intelligence moved with us? Not buried in reports, but activated in real time, where lives are being shaped, where decisions are being made. It all starts with a question. Where is the potential? Cotality turns data into clarity, intelligence into insight, insight into action. Because when intelligence moves, we all move forward. Cotality. Intelligence beyond bounds. The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work.

0:50Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, that isn't always easy. Risk can touch multiple parts of an organization at the same time, often in ways that aren't immediately obvious. It might involve property, liability, or cyber. It could stem from regulatory requirements or challenges tied to a specific industry or the scale of an operation. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline, not a one-time decision.

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2:04Scheduling? Personalized. Checkouts? Instant. Absolutely genius. Big League reliability for any business. That's genius. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. Right now, we wanted to dig into time now for Businessweek Women's Health segment, where we focus on key issues in developing technologies impacting both the present and future of women's health around the world. We're joined today by Dr. Susan Blumenthal. She's a former assistant U.S. surgeon general and the first ever deputy assistant secretary for women's health.

2:48But right now, she's a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab in Washington. Dr. Blumenthal, thank you so much for joining us today. We wanted to talk, of course, about your work in women's health care, but we also wanted to take a moment to discuss what's going on with the U.S. government shutdown. What's been the impact? What have you been hearing on the ground? Well, I think the impact is having a tremendous, you know, concern for health. As the great poet Emerson once said, the first wealth is health, and that's the foundation of a healthy life. You know, before the Affordable Care Act, there were 50 million uninsured Americans.

3:22A person went bankrupt every 30 seconds in the United States. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we now have the lowest rate of uninsured people in history, 8%. However, if with the shutdown in place and if the tax credits for the marketplaces are not extended, then we have 24 million people at risk of paying twice as much for their premiums, a rise of 116%. And, you know, an estimated 4 million could go uninsured. That's just not acceptable in the United States. It also has a tremendous economic impact because 99 % of businesses in America are small businesses. That's 35 million small businesses in America.

4:09And 10 million of those small businesses, you know, have the owners and the employees rely on the Affordable Care Act premiums, these tax credits. So that means that, you know, this could be a huge increase in premiums for these small businesses and could affect their economic well-being. It means that 450 ,000 and small businesses would become ineligible for those tax credits if they're not extended. And that's what the shutdown is all about and why it's so difficult is, you know, this health care question is really on the table. Yeah, a lot of uncertainty around what the next steps are for the shutdown.

4:54But I want to focus on your experience. You've been at the forefront of women's health for 30 years, serving under four U.S. presidents. What was the landscape like for women's health and women's health research back when you started in government? Well, when I started, there were no women's health reports or conferences. Women were not in the clinical trials. So our work was to expose those inequities in the early 1990s. And then in 1993, I was appointed the first deputy assistant secretary for women's health. You know, we then built infrastructure for women's health in all of the governments at NIH, CDC, FDA, women's health offices were there.

5:34We made sure that women and minorities were included in the clinical trials. Today at the NIH, 52 percent of all clinical trial participants are women. However, NIH supported studies are only 10 percent of all clinical trials. So we we have a long way to go. And there are many issues that affect women that have not been studied adequately, like autoimmune diseases. Eighty percent of autoimmune diseases occur in women. These are diseases like diabetes type one, Sjogren's disease, lupus, scleroderma. And so we need to focus more on those illnesses and diseases that disproportionately affect women and women and diseases that affect women differently, like heart disease.

6:16Many people don't know that heart disease is the number one killer of women, but the symptoms may present differently. So we need to train physicians to be sensitive to those differences and to develop treatments that may be somewhat different for them. Well, last month, October, was Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Can you talk to us a bit about your work on this disease, in particular, in terms of improving early detection? Absolutely. Well, one out of eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetimes. It is the most common cancer for women next to skin cancer. But, you know, we need to find it early.

6:59And mammography, when I was working in the 90s in this area, mammography was a 40-year-old technology then. It's now a 70-year-old technology. but 40-year-old technology, three out of four lesions it found were benign, and it missed 20 % of cancer. So I thought, if we can see the surface of the Mars with a Hubble telescope and see missiles 20 ,000 miles away in distant skies, why can't we better detect small lesions in women's breasts right here on Earth? So here's what I did. I called the director of the CIA, the head of NASA, generals at the DOD who worked in research, and I asked them if they had imaging technology that we could apply to finding breast cancer early, and they said they did.

7:38And we put our nation's top radiologists together with their top imaging scientists. And out of that came digital mammography, because then mammography was an X-ray. So digital mammography, computer-assisted diagnosis, which was one of the very first applications of AI, artificial intelligence, to health, and 3D medical imaging. And so we got a peace dividend out of our national investment in defense. And I say, what better investment could there be than to save the lives of women everywhere? As a result of these improvements in early detection of breast cancer and also better treatments, we have seen a remarkable decline in death from breast cancer since 1990 of 44%.

8:28So, again, with the 21st century tools like AI and new technologies that are being applied to the fight against breast cancer, I'm very hopeful that we will bring those death rates down even more so. And, you know, if you find breast cancer early, there's a 95 % five-year survival rate. So we can cure this disease. All right, Dr. Blumenthal, in just about 30 seconds, what are some of the top kind of initiatives that are top of mind or areas of research that you're paying attention to? Again, just about 30 seconds. Well, again, at the MIT Media Lab, we're focusing on a breast patch, an ultrasound patch that you can put in a bra, and it can be remotely monitored for dense breast tissue.

9:14Ultrasound is a very important new technology to use. So and also we want to look at women in midlife, looking at menopause and new interventions there to make sure that the bonus years of life we've gained in this century are truly better years of life, productive years of life, healthy years of life. Thank you for the opportunity of joining me today. Thanks so much for joining us. Of course, that's Dr. Susan Blumenthal, former assistant U.S. surgeon general and the first ever deputy assistant secretary for women's health.

9:46What if data didn't sit still? What if intelligence moved with us? Not buried in reports, but activated in real time. Where lives are being shaped. Where decisions are being made. It all starts with a question. Where is the potential? Cotality turns data into clarity. Intelligence into insight. Insight into action. because when intelligence moves, we all move forward. Kotality, intelligence beyond bounds. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need.

10:27Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions. Not noise, proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Support for the show comes from public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions, buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English, Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500.

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