Robots Start Cutting People Open, Oscar Bleeds $500M, and CMS Forces Hospital Price Cuts

Hey all,

Happy Thursday! Oscar’s poor guidance is another harbinger of the health insurance apocalypse. It’ll be interesting to see what smaller carriers are able to do with significantly higher costs and lower subsidies. 

Enjoy the rundown! 

Jacob Brody (Co-Founder & CEO, ZorroRX)

(New Atlas) World’s First Autonomous Robot Surgery

Johns Hopkins researchers have unveiled SRT-H, an AI-powered surgical robot that successfully performed gallbladder removals on human-like models with a 100% success rate—completely autonomously and guided only by voice prompts. This breakthrough signals a major advance in surgical robotics, shifting from rigid task execution to real-time adaptation and decision-making, bringing autonomous surgery closer to human application within the decade. Scientists say the next milestone is teaching the robot to condescend to nurses before it can truly claim to replace human surgeons. Full Article

(Fierce Healthcare) Oscar Health Cuts Guidance Amid ACA Challenges

Oscar Health has slashed its 2025 full-year guidance by nearly $500 million and now expects an operating loss of $200–$300 million, citing higher-than-anticipated medical costs and risk scores in the ACA marketplace. This downturn reflects broader instability in the individual insurance market. With enhanced premium subsidies set to expire, plans like Oscar face dimming prospects as they contend with shrinking member bases and a sicker risk pool. Full Article

(Modern Healthcare) CMS Site-Neutral Payment Proposal

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a site-neutral payment policy starting in 2026 that would equalize reimbursements for physician-administered drugs, like chemotherapy, across different care settings, reducing payments to hospital outpatient departments. This move aims to cut Medicare spending by $210 million and patient out-of-pocket costs by $70 million in its first year, and it mirrors broader bipartisan legislative efforts to curb healthcare costs and disincentivize hospital acquisitions of independent practices. Hospitals argue the cuts ignore the complex needs of their patients and threaten financial stability, particularly for rural and safety-net providers. Full Article