Joe Lonsdale Slams Healthcare 'Cartels:' Urges AI, Regulatory Reform To Slash Costs, Reclaim Biotech From China

Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR Co-Founder Joe Lonsdale delivered sharp criticism of America’s healthcare system during the Reagan National Economic Forum, calling for artificial intelligence adoption and regulatory reform to combat rising costs and China’s growing biotechnology dominance.

What Happened: Speaking on CNBC, Lonsdale outlined a two-pronged crisis threatening U.S. healthcare leadership. On the biotechnology front, China has captured 30% of the global biotech market in just five years, leveraging regulatory speed advantages to undercut American innovation.

“They take a company we started a year or two ago, go after the same target, get through their regulators faster and then sell it back to our pharma companies,” Lonsdale said, citing the FDA’s decade-long approval timelines as a critical competitive disadvantage.

The venture capitalist emphasized that China’s biotechnology surge combines legitimate innovation with intellectual property theft. This dynamic discourages U.S. investment in certain therapeutic areas where regulatory delays create vulnerability to foreign competition.

Why It Matters: Healthcare services represent the second battleground, with Lonsdale describing city-based hospital systems as “effectively cartels” that block competition through state-level legislation. These barriers prevent new provider networks and limit patient data portability, driving up costs across the healthcare economy.

Current healthcare inflation threatens national fiscal stability, with unfunded Medicare and Medicaid obligations. “If that keeps going up 6-7% a year, no one’s going to get healthcare except for maybe the rich,” Lonsdale warned, noting healthcare’s resistance to broader deflationary trends.

Lonsdale praised Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts, noting the program cut approximately $150-160 billion annually before Musk’s departure. He calculated that this represents $3 trillion in equity value based on the government’s cost of capital.

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