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Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

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Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#91
post #3

Bloomberg used to be better. This is basically a non-story. The 'secret plan' was to use the nefarious mechanism of... Buying access that was for sale. All the allusions to shadyhandedness are just there to justify the existence of a story about Palantir because the author knew a story about a controversial company would propagate better even if it was devoid of anything meaningful to say.

This is so disingenuous. The whole point is that in a publicly funded health system many people disagree with this access being available in the first place. The UK government tries to paint a picture whereby giving such access will allow a raft of plucky UK startups to revitalize the NHS, when in reality we are just handing over our data and taxpayer money to the likes of Palantir.

Telus(large Canadian telco) did this in Canada. Never heard a squick

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Palantir do? What do customers pay them for?

A.I. in general, when tied to police making is, which is the main offering of palantir (count their press releases that mention it) is a way to justify ends. want to continue to subjulgate a minority? pre 70s: racial laws 70s: science says this totaly not racially inclined test will select the best humans for a job. 80s: red zoning and other purely financial reasons ... A.I.: the "data" says so. with AI, just like th…

Technology can be both good and bad, depends on the holder.

The government clearly has a goal they want to achieve and cleaning up their data with AI seems like a solution more likely to work than throwing a small army of bureaucrats at it.

The right wingers when it comes to government control advocate for either 1. don't let government have much control (starve the beast) or 2. if govt already has control, let them at least do it efficiently without wasting taxpayers' money.

The left on the other hand want to empower governments with more and more control, but once the govt has it, they want to prevent it from doing it efficiently - by disallowing efficient use of data and technology - which catches them red handed as they pretty much just want to empower themselves through grants, inefficient paper shuffler bullshit job and other forms of transfers at the expense of others.

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Socialized medicine was always going to be unaffordable in the long term. Why? Sorry but that’s horse shit. There is nothing preventing socialised medicine for working. It costs less per capita nowadays than it did when it was put in place and productivity skyrocketed since. The economic arguments were always the very privileged hiding their greed and contempt for the rest of us behind a fine veneer. I truly believ…

> There is nothing preventing socialised medicine for working. It costs less per capita nowadays than it did when it was put in place and productivity skyrocketed since. That's because of the budget cuts. Service will continue to be trimmed until the system collapses.

I feel you're kinda moving the goal posts here.

From "always going to be unaffordable" to "Service will continue to be trimmed until the system collapses"

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#94
post #3

Bloomberg used to be better. This is basically a non-story. The 'secret plan' was to use the nefarious mechanism of... Buying access that was for sale. All the allusions to shadyhandedness are just there to justify the existence of a story about Palantir because the author knew a story about a controversial company would propagate better even if it was devoid of anything meaningful to say.

This is so disingenuous. The whole point is that in a publicly funded health system many people disagree with this access being available in the first place. The UK government tries to paint a picture whereby giving such access will allow a raft of plucky UK startups to revitalize the NHS, when in reality we are just handing over our data and taxpayer money to the likes of Palantir.

Probably a controversial statement on HN but FUCK AMERICAN DISRUPTORS. I like my socialist privileges thank you very much.

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's relatively new. The NHS used to own its radiography suites. It used to own its land and buildings. It used to hire doctors and nurses and support staff directly. But because of a [also recent] forced-tender system, and high breakthrough prices on in-housing projects, it was deemed "cheaper" to let private providers burden the upfront costs of equipment, land and building management, and short contract mana…

If you're unaware of how tender breaks public services, here's an example. Hospital needs a new MRI suite. To them, this would cost £2m for the machine, £400k for the room, and £500/h in running cost, £1.4m/year. The first 5 years costs are: £3.8m, £1.4m, £1.4m, £1.4m, £1.4m, ... But which trust has £4m in their back pocket for y1 cost? Even if they did, it's a large project so has to go out to tender. A capital-inve…

What prevents them from accepting an offer that has economics closer to the in-house funding cash flow? I’m not from the UK so please forgive the question.

Also, since I’m from the US, your example reminds me of Bobby Bonilla Day, jeered at as an awful deal for the sports team but in reality a fair present value exchange for forgoing a large short-term contract. (I realize unit specific numbers are just an example.) Fun recap, analysis and interview: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/25/1010404697/bobby-bonilla-day

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing preventing socialised medicine for working. It costs less per capita nowadays than it did when it was put in place and productivity skyrocketed since. That's because of the budget cuts. Service will continue to be trimmed until the system collapses.

I feel you're kinda moving the goal posts here. From "always going to be unaffordable" to "Service will continue to be trimmed until the system collapses"

That's what unaffordable means. If it's unaffordable, you can't maintain it indefinitely. You might maintain it for some time, but inevitably it's going to have its budget cut, which will induce more problems, rinse, repeat.

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NHS needs to stand up for itself and politicians need to start talking about 20y plans. If you are serious, I have bad news for you. The situation is going exactly as expected. That’s the traditional Tory plan. Defund, complain it doesn’t work now that it doesn’t have money then make private. British voters can only blame themselves. Between Brexit and decades of voting for the worst of the Tory, if they were l…

Socialized medicine was always going to be unaffordable in the long term. If it wasn't a burden, then the 'cost cutting' measures probably wouldn't have been implemented. Having the government in charge of something means it's always going to be inefficient.

Why having the government in charge of something means it's going to be inefficient?

Ultimately the government needs to be in charge of healthcare because healthcare is not a simple service but a human right. In many ways, we might trade the benefits of competition (which in the long run do end up ruining the system, just look at the USA) for the benefits of democratic ownership.

In any case, as others have pointed out, the system can be turned inefficient if government by government you dismantle the system a little bit and that's precisely what's been happening in the UK. However, this is not something that has happened in other countries in Europe and in general socialised healthcare gives us the highest life expectancy numbers.

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordability is a standard. Ease of access to all demographics, rather than just rich people, is a standard.

So is healthcare IT, considering how many patients die due to medical charting errors alone. And the NHS isn't up to anyone's standard.

Whataboutism at it's finest.

You asked for an example, I gave you a clear and unrefutable example, and you refused to address it.

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#99
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

publicly funded systems routinely use privately funded solutions. there’s nothing new or special here. that fact that people disagree means nothing and should be ignored as people disagree all the times about anything and everything.

No, that's relatively new. The NHS used to own its radiography suites. It used to own its land and buildings. It used to hire doctors and nurses and support staff directly. But because of a [also recent] forced-tender system, and high breakthrough prices on in-housing projects, it was deemed "cheaper" to let private providers burden the upfront costs of equipment, land and building management, and short contract mana…

> The NHS needs to stand up for itself and politicians need to start talking about 20y plans.

There's a 20 year plan.

Make sure the private system that replaces it after spending 20 years looting it is as profitable as possible.

Re: Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NHS needs to stand up for itself and politicians need to start talking about 20y plans. If you are serious, I have bad news for you. The situation is going exactly as expected. That’s the traditional Tory plan. Defund, complain it doesn’t work now that it doesn’t have money then make private. British voters can only blame themselves. Between Brexit and decades of voting for the worst of the Tory, if they were l…

Not decades. It's only been 12 years, with every indication that it'll only be two more, perhaps not even that at this pace. I've no illusions about the electorate but the Tories have spent their time distilling the party down to the extreme right wing element and that's —frankly— shown us all what a bunch of idiots they are. I can't remember a less electable bunch. https://twitter.com/UKPoliticalPics/status/15765728…

The problem with that is the same as it is worldwide. The 'left' parties that replace them are now roughly where the neolibs were when the mess was started.

They'll make some noise about fixing it initially, but then it's back to the defund-privatise treadmill.

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