In Code Blue, a much buzzed-about new book, author Mike Magee dredges up this anecdote from 1919 and many others to show readers that the present dysfunction in US healthcare is not an aberration but a persistent feature of a system ruled by self-interested institutions. The book depicts more than a century of bad behavior by what Magee, himself a medical doctor, refers to as the Medical Industrial Complex.
The book exposes how doctors, drug companies, hospitals, pharmacies, insurers, lawmakers and special interests have colluded over the years to protect their own turf and profits, despite relentless public demand for a system that serves patients instead of entrepreneurs.
