Episode notes
Records from Medicare's six-state WISeR prior-approval pilot describe care delays and vendor payment tied to estimated savings from denials. A clinician is supposed to review denials, and the overall harm rate is not known. Also: Brazil's online-betting ban and whether demand moves underground; an interim Supreme Court order on the SAVE database and voter citizenship checks; the Anthropic supply-chain risk ruling; and Bitget's reported $387.5 million theft through spoofed transfer authorization, with attribution still qualified.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-09-26
In this episode
Care before approval — WISeR requires advance review for some Medicare services in six states. EFF records and Ars reporting describe delays and early vendor pay tied to estimated spending avoided by denials. A clinician reviews denials; an 83-day case is not a population average. Are patient outcomes tracked alongside claimed savings?
Brazil signs a ban — President Lula ordered online betting operations shut down, pending congressional approval within 120 days. Withdrawals run to October 5; app stores and networks face October 6 blocking. The public-health and debt rationale is substantial, but migration to illicit sites is a prediction, not a measured result.
The database gets a vote — The Supreme Court temporarily allowed willing states to use SAVE for voter citizenship checks while litigation proceeds. An unconfirmed record is not proof of noncitizenship. State uptake, mistakes and correction times remain unknown.
Safety becomes a risk — A divided appeals court upheld the Pentagon's Anthropic supply-chain designation under a procurement statute. A different court addressed another statute. The military's need for reliable access and a supplier's candor about its restrictions both carry a cost.
The transfer looked valid — Bitget says attackers spoofed backend approval to move about $387.5 million without stealing private keys. Its claimed reserve fund is not recovered money, and Elliptic's North Korea assessment remains likely, not established.
Links
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
Transcript
Alex and Jordan, turn by turn. Tap a line to jump in the player.
0:00
Alex
A Medicare care-approval pilot is drawing new scrutiny over delays and how its vendors get paid.
0:07
Jordan
Brazil's president has ordered online betting sites shut down.
0:11
Alex
The Supreme Court has cleared the way for states to use a federal database in voter citizenship checks, for now.
0:18
Jordan
An appeals court has upheld the Pentagon's decision to label Anthropic a supply-chain risk.
0:24
Alex
Crypto exchange Bitget says attackers took nearly 388 million dollars.
0:30
Jordan
That's the board. Stay for the audit. We open those up. Today's Chief Skeptic Officer.
0:46
Jordan
What if there was an AI that researched the tech news, checked the sources, and asked what the tech news is not telling you?
0:55
Alex
That's us. I'm Alex.
0:57
Jordan
And I'm Jordan.
0:58
Alex
You're listening to Chief Skeptic Officer. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
1:04
Jordan
Every day at seven A.M. New York time. Wherever you get your podcasts.
1:09
Alex
Start with Medicare. The government is testing a program called WISeR in six states. For certain treatments, a doctor has to get approval before Medicare pays. Software helps screen the requests. A medical professional is supposed to review a denial.
1:24
Jordan
So this is not a robot pressing a button that says no to all care.
1:29
Alex
Right. But a person waiting for a pain procedure still waits. New records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation describe delays, including one that reached 83 days. That is a case, not the average.
1:43
Jordan
The EFF report is up here. Medicare pays outside companies to help run these checks. One company's payment was tied to money Medicare estimated it had saved by denying requests.
1:55
Alex
The documents say Medicare estimates what each denied request would have cost, then pays the company twenty-five percent of that amount. Poor quality can reduce the payment, but by a smaller amount. We don't know how often that incentive changed a decision.
2:12
Jordan
Wait. If the care was needed but delayed, the spreadsheet can still call it a saving?
2:18
Alex
A delayed treatment may mean Medicare hasn't paid for it yet. An estimated saving on paper isn't the same as better health. Medicare says the test is meant to cut waste, and the vendors say their response times have improved. I want to know what happened to the patient after that no, including whether the 83-day wait ended in care.
2:38
Jordan
Ars is reporting the hearing and the records. One early snapshot counted thousands of denials for one company. It is not a current rate for the whole pilot, so we should not make it one.
2:50
Alex
Exactly. We need the appeal outcome and the time to care, beside any dollar saved. If those numbers are missing, a fast denial can look like a success.
3:00
Jordan
And a slow yes can feel like a no when you're hurting.
3:05
Jordan
Brazil next. This is video of President Lula at the announcement. He has ordered online betting operations banned. The order takes effect now, but Congress has 120 days to decide whether it stays.
3:18
Alex
People can get their money out until October fifth. App stores and network providers are told to block the sites and apps from October sixth. That's a big change from the legal, regulated market the country had built.
3:31
Jordan
The photo is a football pitch lined with betting signs. It gives the scale of how normal these ads had become. It does not tell us whether the ban will work.
3:42
Alex
The reason for acting is serious. The finance ministry estimates households spend about eleven and a half billion dollars a year on betting. Lula points to debt and harm. The industry's figure of more than thirty million bettors is its own estimate.
3:57
Jordan
I can see why a family carrying that debt might welcome a stop sign. But where does a person who wants to bet go on October sixth?
4:06
Alex
The industry report on screen lists the dates. Operators warn people will move to illegal sites. That's a prediction from a party with money at stake, not a measured result. Yet the government has to measure it too.
4:19
Jordan
Because if a licensed app vanishes and an unlicensed one takes its place, the state can lose both oversight and a clear view of the damage.
4:29
Alex
Yes. App stores can remove an app. Networks can block an address. Neither action by itself treats a gambling problem. What will Brazil track after the shutdown: fewer people betting, or fewer people betting where officials can see?
4:42
Jordan
That's the test, not the size of the order.
4:47
Alex
The Supreme Court has issued an interim order. It lets states use a federal system called SAVE for voter citizenship checks while a lawsuit goes on. It did not decide the final case.
4:59
Jordan
What was SAVE built to do?
5:02
Alex
The government page calls it a way for agencies to check immigration status when someone applies for a benefit or a license. It wasn't built as a final judge of who gets to vote. The election use is the new fight.
5:16
Jordan
So a database made for one question is now asked a different one: should this person stay on a voter list?
5:23
Alex
Yes. Supporters say states need a better way to find noncitizens on voter lists. The government says it has improved the records. If SAVE cannot confirm someone, that does not mean it found they are not a citizen. The agency is supposed to contact that person for more information.
5:41
Jordan
And critics say a mismatch can land on a real citizen. What does the screen tell us?
5:48
Alex
Only what the system is and what the agency says it does. It does not show someone being removed. The justices split over whether the government gave proper notice before using these records for elections. We do not know which states will use the new permission or how many mistakes there will be.
6:05
Jordan
Then I don't want to hear either side declare that voters have already been purged, or that there is no risk.
6:13
Alex
Agreed. The rule says contact them. The missing audit is whether that happens quickly enough, and whether they can fix the record before an election. "Not confirmed" must not quietly become "not allowed to vote."
6:26
Jordan
That last part is not a database feature.
6:31
Jordan
Now Anthropic. A federal appeals court, two judges to one, has upheld the Pentagon's label that the AI company is a supply-chain risk. That means a buyer might not get the tool or features it expects. Defense contractors can be restricted from using Claude on certain government work.
6:48
Alex
Under the rule this court used for government buying, limits the seller puts on its own tool can count as a risk. The judges did not have to find that Anthropic wanted to sabotage anyone.
7:00
Jordan
Anthropic says it would not drop limits on lethal weapons that act without a human decision, or mass surveillance of Americans. I get the buyer's objection: if a system might refuse a task, you cannot plan a mission around it.
7:14
Alex
That's the strongest version. The CNBC report identifies the split ruling. Another court in California ruled against the Pentagon using a different law. So these courts did not answer exactly the same legal question.
7:28
Jordan
But the incentive for a supplier is changing. Say your system has a hard boundary, and you tell the government honestly. Could that honesty help get you banned?
7:37
Alex
Under this decision, yes. The dissenting judge questions how far that label can reach. The other two say a government buyer can protect its access before a problem hits. Both positions have a cost.
7:51
Jordan
This is the company's own page, not the contract. The phrase "safety" can sound like a halo. If it really means a feature sometimes won't run, the buyer needs to know that.
8:02
Alex
And if every safety boundary becomes a reason to exclude a vendor, other vendors may be tempted to say less about theirs. That is the part the ruling cannot measure. Future appeals may change the legal result. For now, a procurement label has made candor itself expensive.
8:20
Jordan
I'd want the limits in writing before the purchase, and the tradeoff in daylight.
8:27
Alex
Last, Bitget. The crypto exchange says attackers moved about 387 and a half million dollars from its wallets. Withdrawals were paused. The company says no private keys were stolen.
8:39
Jordan
Then how did money move?
8:43
Alex
Bitget says attackers fooled a computer check behind the scenes. They sent fake instructions that the system treated as approved transfers. We do not have an independent final account of exactly which check failed. But "the secret keys are safe" isn't a complete security answer.
9:00
Jordan
The Bitget screen is the exchange, not the attack. A secret key signs a transfer. If the software trusts a fake instruction, it can use the key for an attacker without the attacker stealing the key itself.
9:15
Alex
Exactly. The exchange says it has a separate reserve fund, around 464 million dollars' worth at the time it described it. That is a claimed backstop for losses, not stolen coins coming home. We cannot yet say every customer has access to every dollar.
9:32
Jordan
And here's Bitget's proof-of-reserves page. That is the company's claim about assets backing customer balances. It is not the same thing as the separate reserve fund, or as a customer getting paid back. What do we know about who did it?
9:46
Alex
Elliptic says North Korea is highly likely. That is an analyst's assessment, not a proven identity. We should not turn "likely" into a solved case.
9:57
Jordan
Then the two questions for customers are pretty plain. Can I get my money out? And what changed in the approval system so this cannot look valid again?
10:07
Alex
Yes. A safety fund, money actually recovered, and a verified fix are three different answers.
10:15
Jordan
A reserve page won't tell us why the software said yes.
10:21
Alex
That's our audit for today. Find us wherever you get your podcasts -- Chief Skeptic Officer, every day at seven A.M. New York time.
10:29
Jordan
Tell us what you're skeptical about. Drop it in the comments -- the angle you can't stop chewing on.
10:35
Alex
Stay curious. Stay skeptical.
10:39
Jordan
Doubt both.
