I dont have any soft spots for @NandanNilekani, but this needs demystifying for people to see larger picture and not get personal, potshot happy and forget, but its important to understand what ROHINI is, what the healthcare agenda is, so Thread.
IIB is registered society, promoted by insurance industry as an agency to provide sector level cooperation. Regulators : Industry bodies :: RBI-TRAI-IRDA : IBA / NPCI-COAI-IIB. These industry organizations exist to shape larger policy around industry to safeguard themselves
IIB was formed in *2009* and ROHINI is health insurance market analyzing product which the insurance industry needs. That they have effectively lobbied regulator IRDA to make it mandatory is another thing, all these before *Modi care*
ROHINI is simply put "Aadhaar for Hospitals" upon which grading / scoring can be done, so Insurance companies can bargain best / classify hospitals. This will help health insurance industry to optimize its costs.
ROHIINI was launched in 2015, yes the footer in the site will tell you that. But if its all industry initiative, where is the Nandan connection coming from? Yes - Data is new oil, DataRich and Centralization and his belief in markets will fix all problems.
Nandan propogates a theory called NIU (National Information Utilities) in his book, entities which will hold sector level data, at high granularity, which will help sector participants to deliver better.
Instead of improving public healthcare, which would mean state investing directly, which would mean more taxes for corporates, what if healthcare market can successfully replace need for public health.
. @India_Stack is full suite of digital tools for displacing role of PSUs in banking, insurance masquerading through the guise of technology. Health stack will do the same to health. @eksteporg etc will do for education. Role of state will decrease hugely.
. @India_Stack has already been successfully disrupting welfare schemes like PDS, Pensions. Welfare state is enemy of market. This is where the failure of #Aadhaar is actually a success for is proponents. My theory is Nandan is just a big cog in the wheel of larger forces of WB.
Is India ready for fully marketized finance, health, education? Is all of India ready for that? I really dont know. But the trick in all this is, Nandan never faces any consequences. It was Congress in 2014, may be BJP in 2019 which may need to lose election.
Nandan is selling India, bit by bit, hiding behind technology. Is it good / bad, depends on what your economical philosophy is. I wont even disagree there. But dictatorial approach in it is harmful
Rohini must be ashamed that Nandan calls trolling incident with Bravo, calls members of civil society raising concerns as "orchestrated campaign". Modi isnt the only dictator in country. It might be in media's interest. But Nandan too is one.
Why Am I concerned with all this. Because technology is being used in this process and anything that makes people feel technology is dystopian impacts me directly. Tech is not problem, dont lose faith in tech after seeing Aadhaar, BHIM failures.
The only way is solving this together. Even if it means having conversations with people who you have contempt / people who have contempt with you. Its going to take years. Its in our hands to prevent dystopian future. Or atleast that is the hope.
Economic reform (1991) meant that governance of certain areas was no longer in the hands of netas, but shifted to babus / regulators. .
Digital reform (2009) means moving that from regulators will leave way to tech utopian dreamers. Did we just hear Policy Markup Language from #BullyStack? As more and more functions get market driven, its important to build checks and balances
Show me active consumer forums, anti trust agencies, competition commissions with capacity (No, one Google order isnt sufficient), constitutional auditors. Markets have no / little history of punishing the crooks, not that political governments have done them hard.
