According to TheRegister.com, a study published by OpenAI on Monday claims over 40 million people worldwide ask ChatGPT healthcare-related questions daily, making up more than 5% of all its messages. About 60% of American adults have used AI for health advice in the past three months, with a quarter of ChatGPT’s regular users submitting health prompts weekly. The report highlights that 55% of those U.S. users are trying to understand symptoms, and nearly 2 million messages a week are about navigating health insurance. OpenAI directly links this usage to the failing U.S. system, citing a Gallup poll where only 16% are satisfied with healthcare costs. The company is unfazed, calling ChatGPT an “important ally” and is previewing a full policy blueprint to further integrate AI into medicine.
OpenAI’s Opportunity is America’s Pain Point
Here’s the thing: OpenAI isn’t wrong about the problem. The U.S. healthcare system is, to put it mildly, a mess. Costs are insane, access is uneven, and satisfaction is in the toilet. When people in “hospital deserts” or those facing questions outside clinic hours turn to a chatbot, it’s a damning indictment of the status quo. But OpenAI’s framing is fascinating. They’re not saying, “Wow, our system is so broken people are desperate enough to use our beta product for medical advice.” Instead, they’re saying, “Look at this massive, engaged user base! This is the future.” It’s a brilliant, if slightly chilling, reframe. They see a policy vacuum and a population in pain, and they’re rushing in to fill it. The skyrocketing spending and looming insurance hikes in 2026 just make their case stronger.
The Hallucination in the Room
But let’s get real. The core issue here is trust. Can we trust a large language model with our health? OpenAI says they have a dedicated team and that GPT-5 scores higher on their benchmarks. They talk about reduced “failure modes.” That’s all well and good, but it’s corporate speak. It doesn’t answer the critical question: how often does it get things dangerously wrong? We’re not talking about a recipe here. This is about symptoms, diagnoses, and insurance navigation. As The Guardian’s investigation into Google’s AI Overviews showed, these systems can and do give horrifically bad medical advice. OpenAI’s assurances feel like they’re addressing the *capability* of the model, not the *reality* of its deployment to millions of desperate people. That’s a huge gap.
The Policy Play and the Data Grab
So what does OpenAI actually want? Their “policy concepts” are a tell. Leading the list is a call to “open and securely connect publicly funded medical data.” Read that again. They want access to the nation’s trove of medical research and, presumably, anonymized patient data, to train their models. It’s framed as a public good—”learn from decades of research at once!”—and hey, maybe it could be. But it’s also the ultimate moat. Who else has the compute and the models to ingest that? This isn’t just about helping you understand a rash at 2 a.m. This is about positioning themselves as the indispensable brain of the entire medical industry. The other recommendations, like new FDA frameworks for AI medical devices, all point in one direction: making the healthcare system structurally dependent on AI, preferably their AI. It’s a land grab, dressed up as altruism.
A Fork in the Road
Where does this leave us? We have a genuine crisis in care and a powerful, persuasive tech company offering a solution. The trajectory seems almost inevitable. AI *will* be integrated into healthcare. The question is how, and with what safeguards. Will it be a tool that genuinely supports overworked clinicians and helps patients advocate for themselves, as OpenAI suggests? Or will it become a black-box cost-cutting measure for insurers and hospitals, while shifting liability and anxiety onto individuals? OpenAI’s report is a opening salvo in shaping that future. They’re making their case directly to the public and policymakers, bypassing the traditional medical establishment. It’s savvy. But as we rush toward this AI-augmented future, we can’t let the excitement (or the desperation) blind us to the risks. After all, when the system is already in crisis, adding a new, unproven variable is a monumental gamble.
