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My wife and I have often talked about how my Mother’s Twin Cities residential care facility depended upon low paid foreign workers to take care of my mother and people like her. So when I read the Minnesota Public Radio story about 50 recent deaths that no one is much paying attention to in such facilities I thought I would ask one of the five AI apps I have about it. Here are the three questions I asked as summarized by CoPilot AI and responses which were given to me with a British accented voice.
I usually turn off the sound because reading the scrolling reply is faster. Before I paste the answers I asked CoPilot to summarize my three questions. Here’s the first sumarized question followed by the complete text spoken by the British voice:
#1. You asked if chasing away foreign nationals from healthcare jobs might be linked to neglect in Minnesota care facilities.
CoPilot answered:
The reports from the Minneapolis Star Tribune do highlight a troubling pattern of neglect in Minnesota’s care facilities. They mention that at least 50 deaths have occurred in group homes since 2022 under circumstances that triggered state investigations. Neglect cases include serious failures like allowing residents to wander off unsupervised or not administering life-saving medication.
As for whether the immigration status of workers might be contributing to neglect, the article doesn’t directly address that factor. There’s no explicit link made between employing foreign nationals and the reported neglect cases. Instead, the coverage focuses more on understaffing issues and the growth of for-profit facilities as a root cause of substandard care. So while there may be broader debates about workforce and immigration, the reported findings don’t specifically point to that as a major factor in these tragic incidents.
#2. You then asked if there are national news reports about healthcare facilities having staffing issues due to a drop in employment of foreign nationals and whether this causes stress on patient care.
CoPilot answered:
Yes, there is indeed a broader context in national news about the role of foreign nationals in healthcare staffing. According to reports from the American Hospital Association (AHA), hospitals and health systems across the US are facing significant staffing shortages. They rely heavily on the H-1B visa program, which allows foreign-trained professionals to fill critical roles. However, a new $100,000 fee for each H-1B petition is making it more challenging for healthcare facilities to hire these workers. The AHA reports that over 70% of hospitals expect this fee to impact patient care, and about 57% of the roles that would have been filled by H-1B visa holders are clinical roles.
In Minnesota specifically, there have been reports that federal immigration enforcement actions have had a destabilizing effect on the already fragile caregiving workforce. Long-term care providers have testified that roughly 30% of their staff are foreign born. Changes in visa processing and increased enforcement have led to staff absences and disruptions. These factors are straining operations, increasing costs, and limiting resident access to care.
So, there is indeed a broader national and local picture that suggests that the workforce challenges tied to immigration policies could be contributing to staffing shortages and stress in the caregiving sector.
#3. Finally, you asked for a breakdown of how H-1B visas factor into healthcare staffing, especially for roles that involve daily personal care tasks.
CoPilot answered:
Absolutely, let’s dig into that. While H-1B visas are often associated with highly specialized roles—like doctors, nurses, and other clinicians—the American Hospital Association (AHA) notes that the H-1B program also helps fill direct-care and supporting roles in the healthcare sector. This means some of the workers who assist with daily care tasks—like bathing, feeding, or other essential support—can indeed be hired through H-1B visas.
With that said, it’s also true that a substantial portion of direct-care staff—such as certified nursing assistants (CNAs) or personal care aides—may not typically come through the H-1B pathway. These roles often rely on other parts of the immigrant workforce, including individuals with different visa types or those settled in the U.S. without formal work authorization.
In short, while H-1B fees do impact the hiring of clinical staff, the sector of employment that covers daily personal care is broader. The current workforce challenges in those areas are linked not only to visa fees but also to broader immigration policies and staffing shortages across the healthcare system.
TO WHAT END THIS POST? In short AI is a tool unlike the Google searches I’ve used for the last couple decades. I can put in precise questions and get precise answers back that AI is crafting in a search not unlike the billions of neurons in my brain but with libraries worth of information sought ou in zillions of matches with billions of documents put in suscint but fine english. As before Garbage in Garbage out. The challenge for we humans is to keep garbage out of AI. I think that will be the real test between the US led by a presidency of liars and scientific truth tellers and Putin’s Russia and China’s heritage of descendents from the “long march” other wise known as the aristocracy of the old people Republic of communism turned capitalism. Europe’s in this too putting the branding iron to Elon Musk and company.
I have no doubt we need to teach AI and teach it competantly in our schools. I could teach such a class.
Talk to your AI. Ask it anything. Chide it if it misses the points you want it to make. Take what it says with skeptism but to really test it ask it things that you know all about so you can see if it knows what it has just strung together. That is a test you can make. Do you know cars? Do you know the New Testament? Do you know MLB rosters from the 1950’s? Do you know the battles of the Civil War? Do you know recipes? Those are the subjects you should begin with. Ask it existensial questions. What don’t you know AI? What can you tell me about the (Your last name family) history. I’ve done this with five AI’s. It has sharpened my question asking.
