Gillibrand Statement On Republicans Voting To Allow AI To Deny Medical Care To Seniors

Gillibrand Statement On Republicans Voting To Allow AI To Deny Medical Care To Seniors

Jul 16, 2026

Today, after Republicans voted to block her legislation to end the Trump administration's WISeR pilot program, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to deny seniors' medical claims, Senate Aging Committee Ranking Member Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) released the following statement:

"Allowing AI to continue to delay and deny seniors' medical care is completely immoral and absolutely unacceptable. While Trump and Republicans focus on helping private insurers and big AI companies pad their profits, Democrats are committed to preventing unaccountable machines from blocking seniors' access to timely medical care. I will not stop fighting until the WISeR model is abolished once and for all."

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)' WISeR (Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction) Model, which was implemented on January 1, 2026, allows private insurance companies to use AI tools to delay and deny care to seniors on Traditional Medicare across six states. Specifically, the WISeR model introduced prior authorization requirements into Traditional Medicare for the first time ever, letting AI decide what care patients receive even after their doctors recommend a particular procedure or medication. The third-party AI companies involved in the program are also compensated for "averted expenditures," rewarding those companies based on the volume or cost of care they deny to seniors on Medicare. A recent report showed that the WISeR model has been catastrophic for seniors in the six states where it has been deployed so far.

In September 2025, Senator Gillibrand called on the Trump administration to halt its WISeR experiment, and she introduced legislation in December 2025 to block the program's implementation. After the WISeR model went into effect earlier this year, she introduced the legislation that was voted on today, S.J.Res.198, to repeal it.

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