The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” covers many areas of government activity, including the healthcare sector. According to the Trump administration, artificial intelligence could help rural and underfunded hospitals. While this is not inherently a bad idea, it raises numerous concerns — particularly around patient safety and data protection.
A key part of the bill is the Rural Health Transformation Fund, which allocates $50 billion over five years to states that meet certain criteria. To receive funding, states must satisfy at least three out of ten conditions, including implementing “consumer-focused technological solutions” for chronic disease treatment and deploying technologies such as remote monitoring, robotics, and artificial intelligence in rural hospitals.
Analysts point out, however, that this fund pales in comparison to other provisions of the bill. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $911 billion reduction in Medicaid spending over the next decade — a cut that would directly affect patients losing insurance coverage and hospitals losing reimbursements. In this context, AI may become a desperate attempt for some facilities to stay afloat rather than a thoughtful investment in the future.
Chenhao Tan of the University of Chicago and Karni Chagal-Feferkorn of the University of South Florida emphasize that AI can indeed assist rural hospitals struggling with staff shortages and physician burnout. One example is automated medical documentation. According to the American Medical Association, physicians spend up to eight hours per week writing notes and managing EHR systems. Research shows that AI-generated medical notes match the quality of documentation prepared by average physicians — though they still fall short of the best specialists. In the realities of burnout and staffing shortages, experts say AI can, in some situations, improve care quality. Chagal-Feferkorn also notes that modern technologies could help attract physicians to smaller, understaffed facilities, provided there is proper implementation and organizational support — something many hospitals currently lack.
It is also important to acknowledge the bill’s limitations and cyber-risk implications. The FDA regulates AI tools used for disease diagnosis, but systems that assist with medical documentation are not subject to the same oversight, even when marketed as HIPAA-compliant. Experts warn that broader AI adoption will increase the risk of data breaches, especially when health information from multiple sources is aggregated. They stress that deploying AI in medical facilities must go hand-in-hand with staff training and cybersecurity investments — otherwise, the technology could cause significant harm that will be expensive and difficult to repair.
