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As Scrutiny Escalates, DOJ Announces the Formation of the Health Care Monopolies and Collusion Task Force

Health Care Law Brief on May 22, 2024

The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recently announced the creation of the Health Care Monopolies and Collusion Task Force (the “HCMC Task Force”) aimed at resolving antitrust issues in the health care industry. Specifically, the HCMC Task Force will focus on investigating issues related to the quality of patient care, consolidations between health care entities, labor and employment, and access and misuse of data. It will further promote DOJ’s public policy relating to the need for and benefits of preserving competition in health care. The HCMC Task Force’s mandate is broad and extends to scrutiny, not only of direct health care service providers, but also of companies that work with health care data and health care technology.

The HCMC Task Force will bring together health care experts, accountants, investigators, civil and criminal prosecutors, economists, data scientists, and policy advisors from across DOJ’s Antitrust Division to identify and address antitrust issues in health care markets. In the announcement, the Deputy Director of Civil Enforcement for DOJ’s Antitrust Division, Katrina Rouse, stated: “The task force will identify and root out monopolies and collusive practices that increase costs, decrease quality and create single points of failure in the health care industry.” The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Xavier Becerra, agreed, reminding the public that “[c]ompetition helps ensure patients have access to high-quality, lower cost care, and that health care workers receive higher pay and work under better conditions … and saves taxpayers money.”

The formation of the HCMC Task Force comes on the heels of the launch of HealthyCompetition.gov, an online public portal to report antitrust violations to DOJ, HHS, and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”). This public portal allows businesses and individuals to alert DOJ and the FTC about such anticompetitive behaviors, including, for example, alleged instances of illegal roll-ups, price-gouging, and collusion amongst competitors. Information received by DOJ and FTC may then provide a basis for investigation.

Additionally, this past March, DOJ, HHS, and the FTC launched a cross-government inquiry into the observed increasing control by private equity of the health care industry. The agencies have been collectively examining the effect of private equity’s involvement on patient outcomes, prices, employee benefits and wages, and innovation in health care. FTC Chair Lina Khan stated that, “[t]hrough this inquiry the FTC will continue scrutinizing private equity roll-ups, strip-and-flip tactics, and other financial plays that can enrich executives but leave the American public worse off.” The agencies issued a Request for Information seeking comments on transactions between health systems, insurers, facilities, and private equity funds. The comment period, which closed on May 6, resulted in more than 1,600 public comments. Proskauer has the knowledge, experience, and expertise to help health care stakeholders understand and navigate the implications of the law and the enforcement priorities of regulators in this era of increased scrutiny.

 

Federal court rules Arizona private prisons don't violate inmates' rights

By Greg Hahne
Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services

Published: Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 12:27pm

Updated: Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 4:37pm

Arizona Department of Corrections

Cells at Arizona State Prison Complex - Florence.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the state of Arizona is not violating the rights of inmates by keeping them in private prisons.

The decision leaves intact moves by state lawmakers to increasingly contract with companies that run private prisons.

Nearly a third of the state's roughly 32,000 male inmates are in private facilities. That’s about a 10% increase in the last four years.

NAACP attorney Dianne Post says operators are financially motivated to keep inmates for longer on top of forced labor. 

“Doing this for profit is the same thing as slavery. Yes, it is not exactly the same as chattel slavery. But it does not have to be in order to be a violation of the 13th Amendment," Post said.

In its ruling, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the 13th Amendment explicitly carves out incarceration, meaning it does not forbid prison labor requirements.

The food bridge to nowhere: US admits 30% of Gaza aid isn’t getting to civilians

The $300m structure became operational six days ago

Andrew Feinberg

Washington DC

4 days ago

Palestinians line up for free food during the ongoing Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip in Rafah (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A third of aid arriving from the US-constructed humanitarian bridge in Gaza is not getting to civilians, Pentagon officials admit.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Wednesday that approximately 695 metric tons of humanitarian aid has been transported to Gaza by way of the US-built pier over the six days since it began operation.

Of that amount, Mr Sullivan two-thirds is “either has gone or is on its way to going to Palestinian civilians.”

“The issue is not actually getting food to the pier [and] off the pier, it’s being able to ensure that we have necessary security arrangements in place to deliver it,” he said.

He also told reporters the US and its’ partners “had modalities to get some of that aid distributed” and are currently “in the process of building out to get more of it distributed.”

Mr Sullivan’s admission that a significant share of the supplies - roughly 230 tons of aid - is not reaching Gaza residents who have been left in a state of famine following nearly eight months of war comes after President Joe Biden and other White House officials have touted the temporary pier.

The temporary structure, which cost approximately $300 million to construct, was built in the Mediterranean Sea and anchored to a beach south of Gaza City, is supposed to be an alternate path for aid that can bypass frequently-closed crossings into Gaza and deliver much need aid to address the “famine” being experienced by war.

But a UN World Food Program spokesperson, Steve Taravella, has said the first tranche of aid trucks to roll off the pier was largely ransacked and looted by people before they could reach a UN warehouse on Saturday.

Of that batch of 16 trucks, he said only five arrived there with their full loads.

Yet Mr Sullivan denied the problems delivering aid over the pier were a “failure of planning” and instead called the bottleneck “an indication this is a dynamic environment we need to continue to refine” and stressed that aid to Gaza “is flowing.”

“It is not flowing at the rate that any of us would be happy with because we always want more, but we are actually seeing good cooperation between the US, the IDF, the UN [and] humanitarian organizations to ensure that aid goes from that pier to innocent people in need,” he said.

New Bill Would Extend US Military Benefits to Americans Serving in the IDF


The amendments proposed by HR 8445 further incentivize US citizens to become active participants in the Gaza  genocide.

By James Ray ,

MONDOWEISS

Published May 22, 2024

An Israeli soldier controls a tank as military mobilization of the Israeli army continues near the Gaza border on May 16, 2024.MOSTAFA ALKHAROUF / ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES


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On May 17, legislation was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Cosponsored by Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and U.S. Representative Max Miller (R-OH), H.R. 8445 went largely under the radar, a strange outcome given the real effect it will have on furthering U.S. support for the Zionist project — in this case through direct support for those wishing to serve in the Israeli Occupational Military.

What H.R. 8445 aims to do is make a series of amendments to programs that are ordinarily only available to members of the U.S. military — the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). These amendments would do something unprecedented: Extend these programs to American citizens serving in the Israel Occupational Forces.

The SCRA, the result of the Bush administration’s efforts to update the 1940 Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act (SSCRA), was passed in 2003. Its primary focus is granting active duty U.S. servicemembers legal and financial protections so that they can do the bidding of U.S. empire a little more worry-free. This act’s benefits include protections against default judgments in civil legal cases, reduced interest rates on any pre-service loans to a maximum of 6 percent, protections against home foreclosure, and more.

USERRA, enacted in 1994, is a multifaceted act that ensures U.S. servicemembers can return to their former places of employment after their service ends (with some exceptions) while banning employment discrimination because of past, current, or future military obligations.

In effect, H.R. 8445 is a measure designed to ensure U.S. legal and financial protections are being extended directly to U.S. citizens on the ground in Occupied Palestine as they assist in the ongoing colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians. The amendments it proposes formally bring U.S. citizens fighting in a foreign military into the fold, opening up further incentives for becoming an active participant in the Gaza genocide.

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This effort is not necessarily surprising as the U.S. is putting its full weight into protecting and advancing the interests of its colonial outpost across the Atlantic. The Zionist project has long been sustained in part by settlers from the U.S., with more than 23,000 U.S. citizens serving in the IOF as of February 2024. This figure is bolstered further by the reality that an estimated 600,000 Americans were living in areas under Israeli control, including illegal West Bank settlements, prior to October 7. These settlers play key roles in advancing Zionist, and by extension U.S. imperial interests. As such, it is no surprise that they have been consistently enabled to travel and settle in Occupied Palestine, being joined by billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid.

This act also only furthers a reality in which U.S. citizens are functionally incentivized to act as mercenaries for the Zionist colony, all while shielding them from the ramifications of their actions when they return home. The protections of the SCRA effectively ensure that U.S. citizens fighting in the IOF abroad are protected from foreclosure, get preferential interest rates for loans, and more — all benefits traditionally used to recruit U.S. citizens into its own military forces. It is the U.S. government’s way of telling U.S. citizens that it will look out for them should they put their bodies on the line for the Zionist colony.

USERRA on the other hand acts as the shield, ensuring that when these citizens return home from aiding a colonial military abroad, they not only have the option to return to their former places of employment, but are protected from “discrimination” based on their former service, stopping businesses that may want to avoid the hiring, retainment, advancement, and extension of benefits to those who willingly participate in the genocide of Palestinians, and the potential war crimes involved in this, from being able to do so. In this sense, the USERRA amendments actually play a role as an anti-accountability measure.

All in all, H.R. 8445 is one of many pieces of legislation that are being proposed to continue U.S. support for the Zionist project. It is not a change from the norm in that regard, but the effects of such legislation are genuinely startling for those trying to stop U.S. involvement in the occupation of Palestine and hold those responsible who participate in it. All this is being done, yet again, in the name of advancing U.S. imperialist interests — interests that are inextricably linked to the continued survival of the Zionist settler colonial project, and Zionism itself.

As debate around abortion continues, this adoption agency cofounder talks about an alternative

AS AN  ADOPTEE I ADVOCATE FOR IT OVER IVF

By Lauren Gilger

Published: Wednesday, May 22, 2024

 - 

Kimmybee Photography

Kelly Rourke

The landscape surrounding abortion in our state continues to shift. Lawmakers repealed an 1864 abortion ban that didn’t include exceptions for rape or incest. Now, a 15-week ban is in place — at least until the election in November, when voters could be voting to expand access to abortion even more. 

As the debate around abortion rights swirl, The Show spent a few minutes learning about another option that some pregnant people choose: adoption. 

Kelly Rourke is a cheerleader for adoption. She’s the cofounder of the adoption agency Building Arizona Families, and she was adopted herself when she was just 3 days old. Her birth mother was 16. She tracked her down years later, after she started this agency, and they became close until her death in 2016. 

Rourke told The Show, in many ways, she is what guided her path in this work.

Full conversation

KELLY ROURKE: Because I'm one of the cofounders, you know, I have done every job within the agency from the ground all the way up, and I love working with birth mothers, because my mother is every birth mother that I work with, I see a little piece of my mother in her. And what was the most important thing for me, after I met my birth mother is increasing adoption awareness. That's why I have a podcast. That's why I love to do interviews, because I think it's really important to get correct information out to people, so they understand what adoption is and what it isn't.

LAUREN GILGER: So I want to talk more in a moment about those sort of misconceptions around adoption that you referenced there. But let's let's talk a little bit about what the organization does. You're a licensed, you know, adoption agency. Let's talk about who comes to you first of all, like in this organization, how do people find you?

ROURKE: Women come to us through referrals from their OB/GYN. A lot of women are homeless, and they're on the street and word gets out on the street, that, you know, placing your baby for adoption is a great option because you know, rather than your baby going into the department of child safety, you're able to you know, keep in contact with the family with the child, you get to pick the adoptive family. So, word gets out on the street and women talk to other women. Obviously, the biggest compliment is when another client, a former client, refers us to another woman who's looking to place their baby for adoption.

GILGER: You mentioned a few of the the sort of demographics you're looking at there in terms of the people who come in your doors. But, in general, are you looking at a lot of you know, teen moms, you mentioned homeless women, you know, who what is their motivation when they come to you?

ROURKE: Our demographics are not at all what you see on TV or in the movies. Teenage moms, I would say are less than 1% of the clientele that we work with, maybe one to 2%, actually one to 2%. It's not very common at all, I would say the average age is closer to 23 to 32. A lot of the women that we work with are substance users. A lot of them are homeless when they come to us. A lot of them have been in the system themselves, and so they're making choices for their, their baby so that their baby doesn't wind up in the state system, and they are able to be a participant in the choices for their child's childhood.

GILGER: So talk about the services that you can offer them. I mean, it sounds like it goes beyond just placing the baby for adoption. But if you're talking about right, if you're talking about women who come to you and are addicted to substances, I mean, there must be some, I guess treatment they can go through with you or would have to go through with you.

ROURKE: Actually, it's not treatment with us the way that it works because we are an adoption agency. We're not a rehab facility. We use intensive case managers. So, we are able to connect with any other case managers that they're working with. So, sometimes women come to us and they have like, they go to a methadone clinic, or they are receiving services through Magellan for mental health. And so we are, we make sure to coordinate with all of the workers that they are working with so that we can provide a global approach and make sure that everybody as a team is involved. So when women come to us, and they are wanting to get clean, again, that is something that we can give them referrals and resources, but it's not something that we provide on site.

GILGER: OK. Talk about the help that you provide them outside of just the adoption, and, it sounds like, beyond giving birth.

ROURKE: We've always helped women after they deliver in terms of adoption counseling. So, when they come to us, we make sure that they see an adoption adoption counselor that is independent of our agency and making sure it's the right choice for them. We will provide this counseling throughout their pregnancy as often as they want it and after they deliver. We can help them if some women want to go back to school and so we care them into looking at admissions. It's not from a financial aspect, it's from a case management aspect.

So, we can help coordinate with them. We help them create a resume. We help them if they want to go on an interview, and they're nervous about what that's going to look like, you know, we can do mock interviews with them. You know, housing, Arizona is in a huge housing crisis right now, and we can definitely help women try to identify an apartment. They are eligible if they qualify for financial assistance after they deliver. So there, once a woman delivers and places her baby for adoption, we're still able to help them with their living expenses for six weeks after they deliver. We really want women who come into our agency to leave in a better position than when they came to us. We don't want a woman who comes into us and is homeless to leave the program and still be homeless. Does that happen? Yes.

GILGER: Okay, so let me ask you about the broader landscape here. A lot of centers that promote giving women alternatives to abortion, right, are strongly opposed to abortion or part of the anti-abortion movement. Would you classify your organization in that camp?

ROURKE: Our organization takes a very neutral approach. We are not a political organization. We are licensed by the state of Arizona. We also hold a Hague accreditation for adoption, and so again, we take a very neutral approach. We want to be a resource that women can use if they are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and want to place their child for adoption.

GILGER: Do you think the changes in abortion law in the state right now will impact what you do? Like do you anticipate seeing more adoptions because fewer women may be able to get abortions in the future?

ROURKE: I think it's definitely too soon to tell. I think maybe in a year, we will be able to answer that a little bit more accurately, because right now, it's so soon. And the changes are continually occurring as to what may or may not happen with the laws that have been passed. So, I would still stand by it's just too soon to tell.

GILGER: Yeah. I wonder, I wonder how you navigate this, right? Because a lot of folks in this conversation would talk about the the choice between having an abortion or going through something like an adoption instead, like, have you ever had a woman start the process with you and then decide to have an abortion instead? How do you navigate that?

ROURKE: I've been doing this for almost 20 years, I I can think of maybe one situation. Usually what we see is women who have had previous abortions, and are experiencing another unplanned pregnancy will actually choose adoption. The women that we speak with that have been in this situation have said they didn't even know that adoption existed. And they didn't know that that was an option for them.

GILGER: Is that part of the conversation, though? When you're talking to women about their choices here, you say like, 'well, you can go through this with us, and here's the things that we can do for you. But also you could have an abortion up until this point?'

ROURKE: No, that's again, we take a very neutral approach. So because we're an adoption agency, when they come to us, our focus is adoption. You know, they get to choose an adoptive family. They get to choose whether they want open, semi-open or closed adoption. That's not what an adoption agency would do. 

GILGER: Yeah. Okay, so final question for you then Kelly. I wonder, what do you want people to know about the work that you do that you think might be misunderstood? 

ROURKE: We are working with women with an unplanned pregnancy, and we are there to help them place their baby for adoption. This is not something that is monetarily incentivized. This is not something that we have an ulterior motive for. This is women. A lot of women who work for us are a member of the adoption triad themselves. And so not only are we professionally invested in what we do every day, but we're also personally invested because this is personal for a lot of us. These women are really heroes. This is a hard choice.

GILGER: All right. We will leave it there for now. That is Kelly Rourke, president and CEO of Building Arizona Families. Kelly, thank you for coming on. Thanks for telling us your story here and about what you do. I appreciate it. 

ROURKE: Absolutely.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

More stories from KJZZ

LIFE AFTER ROE 

Louisiana’s Alarming Push to Criminalize Abortion Pills

By Andrea González-Ramírez, a senior writer for the Cut who covers systems of power.
UPDATED MAY 23, 2024

Photo: ALLISON DINNER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Louisiana will soon become the first state in the nation to reclassify the two drugs used in medication abortions as “controlled dangerous substances,” a move that experts say could have far-reaching implications for pregnancy care. The Louisiana Senate approved the legislation, known as SB276, on Thursday and sent it to Republican governor Jeff Landry, who opposes abortion rights. He is expected to sign the measure into law, and it could go into effect as early as October. 

Even though the state has had a near-total abortion ban in place since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and most patients can’t even access abortion pills unless they travel out of state or order them online, conservative lawmakers have  gone a step further in equating the drugs to opioids and depressants. The bill is just the latest push by anti-abortion advocates to curb the use of pills, which are used in more than two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. The Supreme Court is expected to rule next month on whether to reinstate certain restrictions on mifepristone.

During an hourlong Louisiana House debate on the measure on Tuesday, anti-abortion lawmakers claimed that the drugs are “harmful to an unborn child” and that the proposed restrictions wouldn’t prevent doctors from prescribing the pills in other clinical situations outside of abortion care. Opponents begged their colleagues to reconsider, pointing out that health providers in Louisiana have voiced their opposition to the bill. While mifepristone is approved by the FDA exclusively for abortion, misoprostol is a stomach ulcer medication that’s used off-label for a wide range of gynecological care beyond terminating a pregnancy, including inducing labor, managing a miscarriage and postpartum hemorrhaging, and softening the cervix before a biopsy,. “This does not prevent anyone from getting the drug, but it significantly delays care for plenty of people—probably for 99 percent of people who need it and who have nothing to do with wanting an abortion,” Democratic state representative Mandy Landry (no relation to the governor) said during the debate. Her motions to amend the measure and to send it back to committee for more discussion both failed on Tuesday.

Pregnancy care in Louisiana — which has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the nation — has already been disrupted because physicians are afraid of running afoul of the abortion ban, according to a recent report. The procedure is outlawed in nearly all cases with exceptions for when a pregnancy is “medically futile” or the life of the pregnant person is in danger. The law also does not exempt rape and incest cases, and lawmakers recently rejecting adding these exceptions for children under 17. Providers who are found in violation face up to 15 years in prison and $200,000 in fines. Researchers found that, to avoid the impression of violating the state’s ban, health providers are delaying care for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages as well as performing C-sections rather than abortions — the standard of care — in cases when the pregnancy is not viable.

Mandry believes the bill will further intimidate health-care providers. “The ban’s exceptions are construed extremely narrowly, meaning doctors are afraid to even use them,” she tells the Cut. “Now, with this bill, providers are worried about being investigated just for writing a prescription. They are nervous about overprescribing misoprostol and looking like they are giving it out for abortions just like they’re nervous about doing abortions to save the life of the mother.”

SB276 was introduced by Republican state senator Thomas Pressly, whose sister was given misoprostol by her then-husband without her knowledge. According to Texas prosecutors, the man was attempting to induce an abortion without his wife’s consent. The child was born premature and has experienced developmental delays; earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to charges of injury to a child and assault of a pregnant person and was sentenced to 180 days in jail

The measure originally intended to establish the crime of “coerced criminal abortion,” creating penalties for someone who gives a pregnant person abortion pills without their consent. But after the bill unanimously passed the state senate, Pressly, working in partnership with the anti-abortion organization Louisiana Right to Life, included a last-minute amendment to add abortion pills to the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law. Drugs that are considered controlled, dangerous substances include opioids, depressants, and medications that are highly addictive, like Xanax and Valium. Rescheduling mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV drugs would require physicians to have a special license to prescribe the pills; to list their names, their patients’ names, and the pharmacy dispensing the medication in a state database; and to store the drugs in specific secure rooms.

“Louisiana has been ground zero for abortion for a really long time, and it’s not really surprising that this kind of stuff is gonna keep happening,” Representative Landry says. “This bill is sort of creating a pregnancy database because misoprostol is prescribed very regularly to induce labor. If you know anyone who has been induced, it’s highly likely they took that. It’s a bad situation.”

The bill carves out an exception for pregnant people who obtain the pills for their own consumption, but anyone who is not a health-care provider and is found in possession of abortion pills without intending to take them would be criminalized. Violators could face up to ten years in prison.

“Imagine you’re a person who’s 14 weeks pregnant and you’re starting to miscarry. Your physician says, ‘Well, I can prescribe you this medication, misoprostol, that will help you expel this miscarriage,’” says Kirsten Moore, director of the EMAA Project, which seeks to expand access to medication abortion. “Now you can’t, as a patient, ask your partner or your mother or friends to go get the prescription filled for misoprostol. Instead, you’re gonna have to jump through these extra hoops to show that you are in fact the person getting the medication.”

More than 240 doctors in Louisiana oppose the measure and wrote a letter to Pressly saying that reclassifying abortion pills will create “the false perception that these are dangerous drugs that require additional regulation.” The Louisiana Society of Addiction Medicine also submitted a letter in opposition to the bill, referring to it as “legislative overreach” and saying it “goes against the spirit of the drug scheduling system.”

There’s simply no scientific basis for reclassifying mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV drugs, according to Moore. The pills have been on the market for more than two decades and have an excellent safety record (taking them is less risky than taking Viagra or Tylenol). “Drugs are put in that Schedule IV category because they are shown to be addictive and they can be diverted to nefarious purposes,” Moore says. “But neither mifepristone or misoprostol are addictive, period. Putting these pills under lock and key again is just the wrong solution for what we know to be a pretty isolated incident of bad behavior.”

SB276 will also add to the climate of fear facing abortion seekers in Louisiana, says Tyler Barbarin, director of grants and development at the Louisiana Abortion Fund. The group, which offers financial and practical support to patients seeking an abortion outside the state, already hears confusion and distress among callers who aren’t sure what they are legally allowed to do. “There’s the chilling effect every time a piece of legislation passes or even is threatened to pass. People are scared for their lives; they’re scared to be criminalized,” she says. “It’s not going to lend itself to people’s well-being. You can’t destroy people’s ability to care for one another and then expect them to still thrive.”

In a statement, Vice-President Kamala Harris condemned the legislation. “Absolutely unconscionable. The Louisiana House just passed a bill that would criminalize the possession of medication abortion, with penalties of up to several years of jail time,” she said.

“Let’s be clear: Donald Trump did this,” Harris said. Trump has bragged about being “able to kill” Roe and has said that it should be up to the states to determine abortion bans.

SB276 could also have an impact outside of Louisiana. Experts expect to see similar bills crop up across the country, as the anti-abortion movement is deeply invested in cutting access to medication abortion, which now makes up more than 60 percent of clinician-provided terminations in the U.S. A recent #WeCount survey also found that about 8,000 patients a month are obtaining abortion pills through telehealth in states with abortion bans. “It’s not an accident, and it won’t be an isolated incident, right?” Moore says of the Louisiana bill, pointing at the current Supreme Court mifepristone case. “If Louisiana does this, we can expect a number of other states to follow suit really quickly.”

This story has been updated.

 

Artificial intelligence help medical professionals

22 May 2024 

By Alimat Aliyeva

The "digital twin" technology, which helps doctors determine the optimal surgical process that is preferred in treatment, could potentially become a service that can be applied to the entire body in the near future, Azernews reports.

Natalia Trayanova, a professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, has conducted numerous experiments with a digital copy of the heart, which she created with her team. He said that the optimal surgical procedure, which should be preferred in treatment, can be determined without harming the patient. A three-dimensional model created by them using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of an 80-year-old patient with cardiac arrhythmia accurately predicted the successful results of surgery.

According to the researchers, this technology, which is widely used to optimize products in industrial production processes, represents one of the difficulties in adapting it in the healthcare sector. These include technical problems in 3D cell modeling, privacy issues caused by portable medical technologies, and the erroneous identification of artificial intelligence in the development process. On the other hand, the goal is to develop technology supported by private and public investments to map the whole body and become a service offered to a wide audience.

According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, a research company engaged in investments in science and technology, in 2023, the use of digital twin technologies in medicine will be estimated at $1.6 billion worldwide, and over the next 10 years, the market volume will continue to grow and reach record levels. in 2028. It will reach a value of $21.1 billion.

 

Indonesia courts US tech titans as it pursues digital transformation

Billionaire Elon Musk and other high-profile CEOs have visited in the past month and met with the president.

Ami Afriatni
2024.05.22
Jakarta

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (right) meets with Apple CEO Tim Cook at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, in this handout picture taken and released on April 17, 2024, by Indonesia’s presidential palace.

 Handout/Presidential Palace/AFP

Indonesia is throwing its doors open to Silicon Valley, offering a digital gold rush for titans of the U.S. big-tech industry eager to tap into a burgeoning market of more than 270 million consumers. 

The sprawling archipelago nation is fast becoming a strategic battleground in Southeast Asia for dominance in big technology.

During the past month Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk have all jetted into Indonesia and met separately with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to discuss multibillion-dollar investments in manufacturing, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and even Starlink, Musk’s satellite-based internet service.

The Indonesian government has made digitalization a top priority, launching initiatives to improve internet connectivity, promote e-commerce, and foster a thriving startup ecosystem. 

“Indonesia is currently undergoing an accelerated national digital transformation and opening up many investment potentials,” Jokowi said during his meeting with Musk on the sidelines of the World Water Forum in Bali on Monday.

“Hence, we value and actively promote the investment endeavors of companies like SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and Boring in Indonesia,” the president said, referring to Musk’s various business ventures.

The flurry of activity comes as Indonesia, the largest Southeast Asian economy, seeks to position itself as a major player in the global tech landscape.

China has already made inroads through big-ticket investments in Indonesian heavy infrastructure, and Chinese tech giant Huawei also has a footprint here.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk (second from left) speaks next to Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin (left) during a ceremony held to inaugurate satellite unit Starlink, at a community health center in Denpasar, Indonesia, May 19, 2024. [Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP]

For U.S. tech companies, Indonesia represents a tantalizing opportunity to expand beyond saturated markets and tap into a region with immense growth potential. 

The country’s digital economy is projected to reach U.S. $124 billion by 2025, fueled by rising internet penetration, a growing middle class, and a booming e-commerce sector, according to a study by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company.

In its ambitious bid to become a global hub for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, Indonesia has actively sought investment from Tesla. The country, rich in nickel ore reserves, aims to leverage this resource for EV battery production and, eventually, full-scale manufacturing of electric cars.

The country’s strategic location and abundant natural resources make it an attractive destination for investors eyeing the growing EV market, according to analysts.

Indonesia’s vision aligns with its ban on raw nickel exports, encouraging investors to refine nickel within Indonesian smelters, in which the Chinese have invested heavily, analysts say. By doing so, the nation hopes to boost manufacturing of batteries for electric cars and attract foreign investment in related sectors.

The plane transporting tech billionaire Elon Musk is seen during his arrival at Ngurah Rai International airport in Denpasar, Indonesia, May 19, 2024. [Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP]

Jokowi’s administration has been actively courting Musk and Tesla for years, though with little success. That included a May 2022 visit that Jokowi paid to Musk at the SpaceX launch site in Texas. 

Hours after Musk arrived in Bali over the weekend, he launched the Starlink service, aiming to improve internet connectivity in remote areas of the archipelago.

In Bali, Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said Musk would consider an offer to establish an EV battery plant in Indonesia.

Late last month, Microsoft’s Nadella announced an investment of $1.7 billion over the next four years to bolster Indonesia’s digital landscape, along with AI skills training opportunities for 840,000 people and support for the nation’s growing developer community.

That represents the single largest investment in Microsoft’s 29-year history of doing business in the country. 

“Together, these initiatives will help achieve the Indonesian government’s Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, which aims to transform the nation into a global economic powerhouse,” Microsoft said in a blog post. 

Satya Nadella, executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, leaves after attending a meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, April 30, 2024. [Willy Kurniawan/Reuters]

Earlier in April, Cook said Apple would “look at” manufacturing in Indonesia after he met Jokowi at the presidential palace in Jakarta.

By courting Western investment, Jakarta is diversifying its economic partnerships and reducing its reliance on China, which has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects, mining operations, and manufacturing, analysts say. 

‘Friends with everyone’

In recent years, Chinese firms have built roads, railways, and power plants across the archipelago, boosting connectivity and economic development thanks to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. 

However, the Indonesian government has also emphasized the importance of diversifying Indonesia’s economic partners and attracting investment from other countries.

“Both China and the U.S. are welcome to invest, but they must commit to realizing their investments, not just using Indonesia as a market,” said Heru Sutadi, executive director of the Information and Communication Technology Institute in Jakarta.

“Indonesia is friends with everyone. It’s not interested in geopolitical games, including geoeconomic ones,” he told BenarNews. 

Amid a trade war between China and the United States, Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and Malaysia have emerged as beneficiaries of the “China Plus One” strategy, in which companies diversify production outside China.

“This is an opportunity for Indonesia to question these companies about their investment plans,” Heru said. 

Chinese Premier Li Qiang (center) walks with Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for Maritime and Investment Affairs, upon arriving for the 43rd ASEAN Summit at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, near Jakarta, Sept. 5, 2023. [Antara Foto/Raisan Al Farisi/ via Reuters]

But the influx of investment from American technology firms also raises concerns about Indonesia’s readiness.

While the country boasts a young and tech-savvy population, its infrastructure remains underdeveloped and its regulatory framework for the digital economy is still evolving, analysts said.

Experts emphasize the need for Indonesia to invest heavily in education and skills training to ensure its workforce can compete in the global tech market. They are calling for greater regulatory clarity and consistency to attract and retain foreign investment.

“We haven’t attracted much investment due to the lack of a robust tech ecosystem, including infrastructure, regulations, and skilled labor,” said Tauhid Ahmad, a senior economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance in Jakarta.

Tauhid pointed to Tesla’s decision to put off investment in Indonesia, citing the lack of a local supply chain for electric vehicle batteries as an example. 

He also said that U.S. companies tended to be more cautious than Chinese firms, focusing on the broader Southeast Asian market rather than solely on Indonesia.

Despite these challenges, Tauhid said, he was optimistic about Indonesia’s potential. 

“We have a stable GDP, a large population, and high consumption levels,” he said.

“To realize this potential, we need to invest in infrastructure and develop a skilled workforce.”

He suggested the government create a technology academy modeled after Apple’s to nurture local talent. 

“We need to do more than just train a few people at the Apple Academy,” he said. “We need a large pool of skilled workers ready to meet the demands of the tech industry.”

Suzie Sudarman, an international relations lecturer at the University of Indonesia, questioned the motivations behind the visits by the top U.S. executives.

“These individuals are not long-term investors,” Suzie told BenarNews. 

She pointed to Apple’s minimal presence in the country, having only invested $98.5 million to establish its Apple Develop Academy in three Indonesian cities. 

“If they were to invest, clarity is essential, assurances that their investments will yield returns.”

“Unfortunately, corruption permeates our governance,” she said. “Hence, our country has become a refuge for fly-by-night entrepreneurs.”