The new policy arm of San Francisco-based venture capital firm General Catalyst wants lawmakers to clear the way for technological innovation as a way to fix the broken U.S. health care system. That’s the message of its first policy paper — an idea the Trump administration may embrace.

“If you close your eyes and say, what’s the perfect health system 40 years from now, you would actually say one where people don’t have to go to the hospital, because we just keep them healthy, because that’s ultimately what the consumer wants,” Hemant Taneja, General Catalyst’s CEO, told Ruth.

Background: Last year, the firm launched the General Catalyst Institute to work more closely with governments worldwide, an unusual move for a venture capital firm. It was forged under the assumption that instability — of markets, supply chains, health care, education, public safety, wealth creation — is the new norm. The firm believes technology can stabilize this wobbly table if only the government would remove the barriers to getting the shim under the faulty leg.

General Catalyst’s first policy pitch centers on health care — one of its largest areas of investment. The firm has partnered with more than 20 health systems to “transform health care.” And last year, it moved to purchase a non-profit health system in Ohio, giving it direct control over patient health care.

Now, General Catalyst is coming to Washington, where it intends to push policy to make it easier to deploy technology which the paper suggests will ultimately make people healthier, make health data more accessible, reduce health care costs, and even make up for understaffing in health care.

GCI’s big pitch: The institute’s policy paper recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services establish “sandboxes,” or ways of testing novel technology on real patient data with heavy oversight, within the next nine months.

Doing so would help companies fast-track products through the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization process. The paper also suggests that upon FDA authorization, a product should immediately be reimbursable through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, so that those products have a path forward for making money.

— The Office of the National Coordinator/Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy should eliminate rules that allow electronic health record companies to block access to data inside of health systems and generally act in anti-competitive ways.

— ONC, instead of HHS’ Office of the Inspector General, should monitor for anti-competitive practices in health care technology.

— GCI also asks CMS to open up its data on patients, though keeping it anonymized, to the wider public so that health tech companies can use it to build technology to help health systems and doctors better care for patients.

The Trump administration has signaled strong support for expanding AI’s and technology’s role in health care. During their confirmation hearings, President Donald Trump’s health care cabinet picks, including now Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as his nominee for FDA Commissioner, Marty Makary, and head of CMS, Mehmet Oz, all supported the use of AI and technology as a way to cut excess spending and improve the quality of health care.


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Congress might again be plotting to tackle a key challenge across the health sector: clinical labor shortages.

Lawmakers are already planning how to boost the health workforce in the coming Congress.

This week, Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.) pitched legislation that would direct doctors in training to areas with physician shortages — just a few months after another group of lawmakers offered draft legislation for other reforms in the system to train doctors. Last Congress, a working group of lawmakers proposed reforms that were built into some of the legislation.

Many other powerful lawmakers have committed to growing the number of clinicians in the United States. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who leads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member on the panel, have for years said boosting the clinical workforce is among their top health care priorities. And members of the Senate Finance Committee have been close to the reform efforts, including proposals to add more residency slots.

The backing across parties and states could make increasing the clinical workforce a priority for health legislation in the coming months and years.

Even so: New health legislation — even bills with substantial bipartisan support — has been difficult to pass in recent months. A large bipartisan package has repeatedly been dropped from must-pass vehicles or standalone passage efforts.

Why it matters: Providers have long argued that more funding is needed to build up the health workforce, especially as labor costs have risen and the supply of doctors and nurses has dipped. The average number of staffed hospital beds has dropped since the end of the Covid-19 public health emergency.