The U.S. stock market, especially the tech-heavy NASDAQ, was deeply (no pun intended) rattled by a Chinese AI upstart called DeepSeek on Monday. It appears to have accomplished much of what large language models developed in the U.S. have but at a fraction of the cost and with lower-grade technology. Remember how the U.S. restricts the sale of advanced microchips to China citing security reasons.

The DeepSeek R1 model is breaking the internet, apparently.

So here at MedCity News, we decided to do a head-to-head test with DeepSeek and ChatGPT on a basic question: Why is healthcare so expensive in the U.S.?”

The results were indeed interesting:

• Both DeepSeek and ChatGPT had 10 contributing factors, but they were not all the same. For instance, ChatGPT listed “Lack of Universal Healthcare” as a factor, whereas DeepSeek listed “High Cost of Medical Education” and “Variations in Pricing.”
• In general, DeepSeek was more thorough even when it identified the same contributing factor to high costs than ChatGPT. For instance, let’s take the issue of management of chronic diseases. Here, ChatGPT merely lists the high prevalence of diabetes, obesity and heart failure in the U.S. and their ongoing management as a cause for high healthcare costs in America. Meanwhile, DeepSeek says the same thing but adds that “lifestyle factors contribute to these conditions” and the healthcare industry bears the cost of their management. So here, one can infer that these diseases may indeed be preventable, given they are not inherited.
• DeepSeek demonstrates knowledge of recent history whereas ChatGPT doesn’t. In its conclusion, the OpenAI-created GenAI tool merely states that “systemic reform in pricing, regulation and in the structure of healthcare delivery” is needed to address all the various factors it lists as contributing to high healthcare costs. Meanwhile, DeepSeek cites the Affordable Care Act and how it tried addressing some issues but that in general the issue of high healthcare costs remains “a complex and politically charged challenge.”

For more differences and a letter grade offered to each engine, view this video below.