I read this book as a pre-release e-book obtained through NetGalley, provided by the publisher.

Healthcare costs eat 20% of the US GDP, with expenditures about 10% higher than all US Federal taxes combined. Most healthcare – as in over 50% - is useless. It’s ineffective, barely effective, or often speculative. A large number of things we are treated for are a result of advertising. Indeed, television commercials are filled with ads for medications, and no more information than “Ask your doctor”. This is disease mongering – many of these so-called diseases didn’t exist until someone had a cure – and test – for this (pseudo) disease. This has gotten to the point where people everywhere are talking about their diseases, pseudo-diseases, medical tests, and test numbers, while commonly taking 10 different prescription medications each day. Fifty years ago, this was considered “boorish” conversation, engaged in by a few hypochondriacs. Death rates of numerous things are staying steady, but there are a lot more patients. Over the past few years, average age of death has shortened. We are certainly not getting what we are paying for! Loose Money, Corruption, Poor-Quality Healthcare is the "triad" in the American healthcare system of the early 21st century.

We have many tests and procedures said to “save lives”. However, these do not change all-cause mortality, or some might even lower it. What good is it to have a test and treatment for one disease only to increase your odds of dying sooner of something else?

This has also impacted the science. Industry pays for most studies, and even if they are found to be worthless, the data is retrospectively analyzed to find relationships between unstudied variables. There may be thousands of these pairs or triads of relationships, and chances are that something appearing significant will seem to be significant – but isn’t.

The book goes into a number of causes for this, including the method for remuneration, there being no way to find out what you’re paying or agreeing to pay. Another reason is the number of organizations, including corporations and government agencies who pay for various things, at various rates.

The loser in all of this is the patient – both with their health and monetarily.