How artificial intelligence is going to cure America's sick health care system

For decades, technology has relentlessly made phones, laptops, apps and entire industries cheaper and better--while health care has stubbornly loitered in an alternate universe where tech makes everything more expensive and more complex. Now startups are applying artificial intelligence (AI), floods of data and automation in ways that promise to dramatically drive down the costs of health care while increasing effectiveness. If this profound trend plays out, within five to 10 years, Congress won't have to fight about the exploding costs of Medicaid and insurance. Instead, it might battle over what to do with a massive windfall. Today's debate over the repeal of Obamacare would come to seem as backward as a discussion about the merits of leeching. One proof point is in the maelstrom of activity around diabetes, the most expensive disease in the world.