Lynn Shapiro Snyder, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences and Litigation practices, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office was quoted in Inside Health Policy, in “Digital Health Groups Pleased AI Plan Emphasizes Innovation, but State Funding Ban Raises Eyebrows,” by Christian Robles. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
Digital health groups on Wednesday (July 23) praised the White House's sweeping new artificial intelligence action plan for making room for health-specific approaches under the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, but the administration's threat to withhold some federal funding from states with burdensome AI regulations has one lawyer already advising stakeholders to work with states on workarounds. …
The plan also says the Federal Communications Commission will lead evaluations of "whether state AI regulations interfere with the agency's ability to carry out its obligations and authorities under the Communications Act of 1934."
While it's not immediately clear what state-level AI regulations could be caught in the crosshairs, existing laws governing payers' use of AI in prior authorizations and mandating providers disclose generative AI-supported communications with patients could be among those targeted.
Additionally, state legislatures, which have seen an explosion in proposed AI legislation affecting health care stakeholders in recent years, could be dissuaded from enacting new AI rules.
Amid the fresh state-level policy uncertainty, Lynn Shapiro Snyder, a lawyer at Epstein Becker Green, told IHP that health AI innovators should be "politically proactive with state policymakers to ensure that any state AI law or regulation in existence today or proposed could not be considered 'burdensome' or 'overly restrictive to innovation in the AI space' if that state and its residents want to enjoy or continue to enjoy the benefit of any federal AI-related discretionary federal spending that flows to that state."
The White House's strategy to discourage states from overregulating AI comes less than a month after lawmakers on Capitol Hill axed from their reconciliation bill a plan to bar states from regulating AI tools for a decade.
