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Price inelastic healthcare is a private equity dream. The project to leave NHS funding unreformed in order to buy acquiescence to its sell off, all the whilst l

Price inelastic healthcare is a private equity dream. The project to leave NHS funding unreformed in order to buy acquiescence to its sell off, all the whilst leaving people to rot, is to my eyes scandalous. But somehow unremarked in the twilight zone that the UK has become.

zimpenfish 4y ago
> is to my eyes scandalous. But somehow unremarked There's a lot of remarking going on - Private Eye, for example, have been banging the "NHS privatisation" drum for a couple of decades at least. The Guardian, too, mention it not infrequently.
- azalemeth 4y ago
  This is very true. The NHS has become a commissioning organisation -- it puts out a request for a service and providers bid for it. Many of these services are IT related; many of them are things like physiotherapy referral programmes. Patients may or may not know who provides their care. This is not at all how things used to be and I have noticed it get far worse of late.
  - tailspin2019 4y ago
    As an aside, I’ve had first hand experience in a couple of those outsourced IT services and the amount of wasted money in that area alone is staggering.
    - phatfish 4y ago
      Said firms are also laughably bad. A number of NHS services were taken down by a crypto-locker style attack just recently. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62442127 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62442127 The internal NHS IT services were no worse and far better value as you say.
kranke155 4y ago
The UK media is an example of an oligarchy successfully controlling the entire information landscape and consistently pushing for manufactured “problems of the week” while ignoring real disturbing trends in home ownership, poverty, health and inequality between London and the abandoned “regions”. The book “Fake law” was terrifying to me - it talks about a whole number of high profile judicial cases that were pretty much distorted by the Mail/Times/Telegraph into whatever propaganda they wanted to push that week, often directed just in ways that it would benefit the oligarchy. And there are multiple books like that. Fake Law, Flat Earth News, Merchants of Doubt.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  BBC? The Guardian? The Independent? I think you're picking and choosing narratives here, not accurately representing reality.
  - _benedict 4y ago
    The Independent is owned by Lebedev. It is part of the aforementioned oligarchy, literally.
  - jimnotgym 4y ago
    I don't. The Mail wants to turn every story into outrage. The Telegraph has lost touch with reality, and is frankly weird. I cancelled my Times subscription over the weird reporting of the Snoopers Charter. I checked back recently and it has just got worse
  - mandmandam 4y ago
    No, he's right. And it has been this way for a long time. The way Corbyn and Assaange were demonized and smeared ought to have made it obvious - but that's the thing about controlling the entire media landscape. Even if it ought to be obvious, there are people telling you to ignore the truth tellers, and you've nowhere to read their exposes except social media, where in fact they are likely shunted down the algorithm. There are always people running in online to say that since "both sides" detest the BBC they must be doing something right, but that's ignorance at best, if not plain disingenuous. The BBC have an insanely pro corporate pro war stance, and have wielded it in elections with craft and force. Same w the others. It's not just me saying all this either. Many have noticed. Many decry the loss of a balanced media landscape. But you won't hear about it on corporate news, or the Beeb or the Grauniad either. https://pressgazette.co.uk/john-pilger-says-guardian-column-was-axed-in-purge-of-journalists-saying-what-the-paper-no-longer-says/ https://pressgazette.co.uk/john-pilger-says-guardian-column-...

zimpenfish 4y ago

> is to my eyes scandalous. But somehow unremarked There's a lot of remarking going on - Private Eye, for example, have been banging the "NHS privatisation" drum for a couple of decades at least. The Guardian, too, mention it not infrequently.

azalemeth 4y ago
This is very true. The NHS has become a commissioning organisation -- it puts out a request for a service and providers bid for it. Many of these services are IT related; many of them are things like physiotherapy referral programmes. Patients may or may not know who provides their care. This is not at all how things used to be and I have noticed it get far worse of late.
- tailspin2019 4y ago
  As an aside, I’ve had first hand experience in a couple of those outsourced IT services and the amount of wasted money in that area alone is staggering.
  - phatfish 4y ago
    Said firms are also laughably bad. A number of NHS services were taken down by a crypto-locker style attack just recently. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62442127 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62442127 The internal NHS IT services were no worse and far better value as you say.

kranke155 4y ago

The UK media is an example of an oligarchy successfully controlling the entire information landscape and consistently pushing for manufactured “problems of the week” while ignoring real disturbing trends in home ownership, poverty, health and inequality between London and the abandoned “regions”. The book “Fake law” was terrifying to me - it talks about a whole number of high profile judicial cases that were pretty much distorted by the Mail/Times/Telegraph into whatever propaganda they wanted to push that week, often directed just in ways that it would benefit the oligarchy. And there are multiple books like that. Fake Law, Flat Earth News, Merchants of Doubt.

missedthecue 4y ago
BBC? The Guardian? The Independent? I think you're picking and choosing narratives here, not accurately representing reality.
- _benedict 4y ago
  The Independent is owned by Lebedev. It is part of the aforementioned oligarchy, literally.
- jimnotgym 4y ago
  I don't. The Mail wants to turn every story into outrage. The Telegraph has lost touch with reality, and is frankly weird. I cancelled my Times subscription over the weird reporting of the Snoopers Charter. I checked back recently and it has just got worse
- mandmandam 4y ago
  No, he's right. And it has been this way for a long time. The way Corbyn and Assaange were demonized and smeared ought to have made it obvious - but that's the thing about controlling the entire media landscape. Even if it ought to be obvious, there are people telling you to ignore the truth tellers, and you've nowhere to read their exposes except social media, where in fact they are likely shunted down the algorithm. There are always people running in online to say that since "both sides" detest the BBC they must be doing something right, but that's ignorance at best, if not plain disingenuous. The BBC have an insanely pro corporate pro war stance, and have wielded it in elections with craft and force. Same w the others. It's not just me saying all this either. Many have noticed. Many decry the loss of a balanced media landscape. But you won't hear about it on corporate news, or the Beeb or the Grauniad either. https://pressgazette.co.uk/john-pilger-says-guardian-column-was-axed-in-purge-of-journalists-saying-what-the-paper-no-longer-says/ https://pressgazette.co.uk/john-pilger-says-guardian-column-...