Overview

For the first time, Code Blue presents the dramatic story of how our Medical Industrial Complex was built, while exploring why Americans pay way more for healthcare than any developed country in the world-and get far worse results. Mike Magee's narrative rivals the best of Michael Lewis in its clarity, authority, and compulsive readability. This is essential reading for every American concerned with his or her health and the health of the nation. Magee explains American healthcare's original sin: when establishing our system, health and political leaders prioritized profit over good health results; cure over care; and quixotically conquering disease over improving the social, cultural, and environmental conditions that in huge ways determine the health of our citizenry. While we established our profit-first system for our citizens, our military designed single-payer systems focused on care, not cure, for our defeated enemies in World War II, Germany and Japan-the system we ought to have in the United States. Statistics are compelling; here are two: 1) American children are almost twice as likely to die in the first five years of life than British, German, Canadian, and Japanese children-all countries which have single payer, multi-plan systems. 2) The U.S. healthcare lobby is four times as large as that run by the U.S. defense industry. Mike Magee is a distinguished doctor, hospital administrator, and former executive of Pfizer. He has spent the last ten years unraveling how our healthcare system was built and the complexity of its operation. Code Blue is the remarkable culmination of that decade of research.

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Reviews

Praise for Code Blue: Show[s] readers that the present dysfunction in U.S. health care is not an aberration, but a persistent feature of a system ruled by self-interested institutions . . . The material on Big Pharma is where the book cuts deepest . . . [Magee] describes a world in which needed drugs are not produced because profits don't justify it, but huge research-driven pharma companies cry foul when their work benefits the public cheaply after patents expire. -Minneapolis Star Tribune Utilizing a character-drawn structure to lend narrative flow to the book, Magee has penned a provocative and riveting read. -The Day A searing and persuasive expose of the American health care system . . . The inferiority of U.S. health care compared to dozens of other nations ahs been well-documented for several decades, and the author effectively builds on that documentation. He demonstrates how leaders of other nations have consciously decided that quality health care is a basic right for all citizens, in large part because a healthy citizenry is essential to economic well-being. However, decades ago, American leaders decided that quality health care was not a basic right of citizenship; instead, they chose to rely on market capitalism as the health care model, with disastrous results . . . Readers will hope that Magee's knowledgeable, urgent indictment, following so many others in recent years, will lead to meaningful reforms. -Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Hospitals use 'code blue' for medical emergencies; longtime physician Magee argues convincingly that the U.S. itself is in one . . . What's the solution? Among other things, Magee recommends suspending FDA-approved direct-to-consumer advertising and giving basic universal coverage to everyone. -Booklist As we did with Big Tobacco, Mike Magee skillfully exposes a collusive web of businesspeople who restructured health care to deliver profit in the billions. With an eye toward justice, Code Blue traces eight decades of wrongdoing. This is public service at its best! -Mike Moore, former Attorney General of Mississippi, and lead attorney, Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement A tour de force from Mike Magee who explains how our Medical Industrial Complex evolved to its current bloated, inequitable state. Extensive research and insights from his diverse experience support the diagnosis of Code Blue and outline the steps we need to take to fix it. -Susan M. Love, MD, author of Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book Urgent. Sobering. Revelatory. The cost of health care in America keeps rising while the quality of care is falling. And why? Because, as Dr. Mike Magee explains, profiteering, rather than an interest in people's health, has over time become the raison d'etre of care in the U.S. Read this book to learn how we got to this crisis moment, and, most importantly, how we can work together to get beyond it. -Theresa Brown, RN, author of The Shift and Critical Care Pharmaceutical industry insider Dr. Mike Magee exposes the deep financial ties between U.S. medicine and profit-driven business. This book is chock-a-block full of the kinds of facts you sense are there but need an experienced guide to point out. If you want to know where all that money goes and why Americans are so unhealthy, this is the book for you. -John Abramson, MD, MSc, Lecturer, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School and author of Overdo$ed America Ida Tarbell and Leo Tolstoy had a baby, and it was called Code Blue. If you want stories of corruption reminiscent of Tarbell's muckraking, and you want to combine them with a sweep of history and personalities that is Tolstoyan, this book is for you. If you've resisted the idea of single payer, Code Blue is highly likely to change your view. -Mitzi Perdue, author of How to Make Your Family Business Last

Praise for Code Blue: Show[s] readers that the present dysfunction in U.S. health care is not an aberration, but a persistent feature of a system ruled by self-interested institutions . . . The material on Big Pharma is where the book cuts deepest . . . [Magee] describes a world in which needed drugs are not produced because profits don't justify it, but huge research-driven pharma companies cry foul when their work benefits the public cheaply after patents expire. -Minneapolis Star Tribune Utilizing a character-drawn structure to lend narrative flow to the book, Magee has penned a provocative and riveting read. -The Day A searing and persuasive expose of the American health care system . . . The inferiority of U.S. health care compared to dozens of other nations ahs been well-documented for several decades, and the author effectively builds on that documentation. He demonstrates how leaders of other nations have consciously decided that quality health care is a basic right for all citizens, in large part because a healthy citizenry is essential to economic well-being. However, decades ago, American leaders decided that quality health care was not a basic right of citizenship; instead, they chose to rely on market capitalism as the health care model, with disastrous results . . . Readers will hope that Magee's knowledgeable, urgent indictment, following so many others in recent years, will lead to meaningful reforms. -Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Hospitals use 'code blue' for medical emergencies; longtime physician Magee argues convincingly that the U.S. itself is in one . . . What's the solution? Among other things, Magee recommends suspending FDA-approved direct-to-consumer advertising and giving basic universal coverage to everyone. -Booklist As we did with Big Tobacco, Mike Magee skillfully exposes a collusive web of businesspeople who restructured health care to deliver profit in the billions. With an eye toward justice, Code Blue traces eight decades of wrongdoing. This is public service at its best! -Mike Moore, former Attorney General of Mississippi, and lead attorney, Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement A tour de force from Mike Magee who explains how our Medical Industrial Complex evolved to its current bloated, inequitable state. Extensive research and insights from his diverse experience support the diagnosis of Code Blue and outline the steps we need to take to fix it. -Susan M. Love, MD, author of Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book Urgent. Sobering. Revelatory. The cost of health care in America keeps rising while the quality of care is falling. And why? Because, as Dr. Mike Magee explains, profiteering, rather than an interest in people's health, has over time become the raison d'etre of care in the U.S. Read this book to learn how we got to this crisis moment, and, most importantly, how we can work together to get beyond it. -Theresa Brown, RN, author of The Shift and Critical Care Pharmaceutical industry insider Dr. Mike Magee exposes the deep financial ties between U.S. medicine and profit-driven business. This book is chock-a-block full of the kinds of facts you sense are there but need an experienced guide to point out. If you want to know where all that money goes and why Americans are so unhealthy, this is the book for you. -John Abramson, MD, MSc, Lecturer, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School and author of Overdo$ed America Ida Tarbell and Leo Tolstoy had a baby, and it was called Code Blue. If you want stories of corruption reminiscent of Tarbell's muckraking, and you want to combine them with a sweep of history and personalities that is Tolstoyan, this book is for you. If you've resisted the idea of single payer, Code Blue is highly likely to change your view. -Mitzi Perdue, author of How to Make Your Family Business Last

Author Information

Mike Magee, MD, is a medical historian and journalist on the faculty of Presidents College at the University of Hartford. He has held similar roles at a range of academic institutions. He was a Honorary Master Scholar at the NYU School of Medicine and a Distinguished Alumnus award recipient from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Beginning as a country doctor in western New England, he rose to the highest level of his profession holding senior executive positions at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, and as head of global medical affairs for Pfizer. He is editor of the blog HealthCommentary.org. mikemagee.org healthcommentary.org @hcommnews

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