This was a great (but also very upsetting) book looking at the medical industrial complex. As someone working in healthcare this left me pessimistic for the future of medicine.

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This is such an important book looking at an insider's view (from multiple perspectives) of the medical industrial complex. Some may complain or moan that Dr. Magee is selling the medical community or administrators out by telling this story but it needs to be publicly told. In this day and age, when our country, as wealthy as it is, has such awful statistics in the healthcare sector for easily preventable conditions, we need to know these facts. Washington, D.C. politics are too busy vying for power and not representing the needs of Americans when it comes to many issues, but healthcare is one that will universally affect each and every one of us.
Wake up people! Everyone dies! Therefore, preventing disease is important. Treating disease early is important. Having easy access to high quality care is important. Instead we are allowing decisions to be made by the MIC that will ultimately affect our ability to access these services (and for providers to provide them).
Thank you Dr. Mike Magee for this timely and comprehensive book outlining the background and conversation we need to be having in this country now about how we want our healthcare to be for the coming years and why it became the way that it is now.

Highly recommend!!
#CodeBlue #NetGalley

For another look at America's health care system and the problems with which it is associated, see CODE BLUE by Mike Magee. This non-fiction work unabashedly addresses "profit over health: the fascinating, infuriating story of how we built the world's most expensive, least equitable health care system - and what we can do to fix it." Magee, who is a medical doctor and historian on the faculty at the University of Hartford, has also worked for Pfizer and edits his own blog, HealthCommentary.org. His biases and frustrations are evident there as well as in CODE BLUE (a title selected to convey his sense that "the American health care system is in critical condition") where he notes, "Americans spend from 50 percent to 100 percent more on health care as a share of GDP than people in other industrialized countries do, and for all our high expenditure we get collective outcomes that are demonstrably worse." Clearly, this is an extremely complex topic, and one that will continue to be debated publicly, especially with respect to basic universal coverage proposals. Magee devotes roughly a fourth of this text to an appendix, notes and an index. He also includes several lists, including "Some Basic Steps to Reform the Medical Industrial Complex," looking at education, clinical research, publications and marketing. Overall, his pressing sense of urgency seemed to negatively impact his objectivity even though CODE BLUE received a starred review from Kirkus.

Anti-Pfizer diatribe by a former Pfizer employee. Also there isn't really any objective, broad-based observation here. Didn't like it. Half-baked. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

An eye-opening, inside look at the broken state of American health care. Magee, formerly a physician-spokesperson for Pfizer, takes on everything from the American Medical Association to big pharmaceutical companies. You will feel better informed after reading this book, but much worse about our nation's health care system, although Magee offers practical suggestions for how our political leaders, medical providers, and others can fix things.

Everything you should know about the Medical Industrial Complex in the United States in one riveting book! As a physician, former hospital administrator and former pharmaceutical executive, author Mike Magee takes us into the corporate world of one of the most complicated and costly industries in the US. This book dives into the history, context, back story, key players, legislation, competition and collusion that have shaped the nation’s present-day health care industry. Although there is quite a lot of content, this is anything but a dry read. It is insightful and thought-provoking.

This is a very well written book. It provides an overview of what the author calls the medical industrial complex. He tells the history of the medical industry up to the present day. Very readable and enlightening.