Code blue: inside America's medical industrial complex

Description

The constant gardener -- Intertwined -- Government steps in -- The war of science against disease -- Advocates -- The house of God -- Insuring complexity -- Masters of manipulation -- Equal parts politics and science -- Strange bedfellows : health care, politics, and the Christian Right -- Nigeria, CROs, and research biases -- Viagra : "everything that rises must converge" -- New rules -- Time to deal -- The MIC : "tapeworm of American economic competitiveness" -- Appendix: Timeline of Pfizer's penalties and transgressions.;"Why has the United States, with more resources than any nation, developed a healthcare system that delivers much poorer results, at near double the cost of any other developed country? The answer is profit prioritized over health. Mike Magee, MD, who worked for years inside the medical system administering a hospital and then as a senior executive at the giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer, has spent the last decade deconstructing the often shocking way that the pillars of our health system--Big Pharma, insurance companies, hospitals, the American Medical Association, and anyone affiliated with them--have built a web of connections Magee refers to as the Medical Industrial Complex. With an eye first and foremost on the bottom line rather than on the nation's health, each sector has for decades embraced cure over care, aiming to conquer disease rather than concentrate on the cultural and social factors that determine health. This decision Magee calls the 'original sin' of our health system. Code Blue is a riveting, character-driven narrative that draws back the curtain on the giant industry that consumes one out of every five American dollars such that legendary seer Warren Buffett calls the Medical Industrial Complex 'the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness.' Making clear for the first time the mechanisms, greed, and collusion by which our medical system was built over the last eight decades--and arguing persuasively and urgently for the necessity of a single-payer, multi-plan insurance arena of the kind enjoyed by every other major developed nation--Mike Magee gives us invaluable perspective and inspiration by which we can, indeed, reshape the future."--Dust jacket.