DVD only
86 minutes, 2009
Producers: Alex Gibney and Chris Matonti, Director, Andrew Fredericks, based on the book of the same title by Maggie Mahar (Released in cooperation with B-side Entertainment)
Money-Driven Medicine provides the essential introduction Americans need to become knowledgeable and vigorous participants in healthcare reform. Produced by Academy Award winner Alex Gibney ("Taxi to the Dark Side," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room") and based on Maggie Mahar's acclaimed book of the same title, "Money Driven Medicine" offers an accessible, journalistically rigorous explanation of how the U.S. healthcare system went so terribly wrong and what it will take to fix it. Americans spend two times more per capita for healthcare than the average rich country, one-sixth of our GDP. What are we getting for that money? The US ranks twenty-ninth in life expectancy and the World Health Organization ranks our health system 37th in the world, behind Slovenia and Costa Rica. "Money-Driven Medicine" reveals that the profit-driven "medical-industrial complex" has over-built the healthcare sector producing a powerful, distorting incentive for billions of dollars of pointless, even risky, tests, prescriptions and surgeries. This pay-per-service system drives doctors into lucrative specialities, while primary care physicians have become an endangered species. Million dollar diagnostic machines stand idle while emergency rooms overflow.
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'Money Driven Medicine' Claims Health Care Industry Is Driven by ProfitBy Terry Moran (unfortunate name) and Mary Marsh
Aug. 12, 2009
This year, August recess for members of Congress comes with a hefty (home)work load. As the Sept. 15 due date set by President Obama for health care reform approaches, the raging debate has both Democratic and Republican lawmakers encountering town hall meetings that often turn into free-for-alls.
On Tuesday, Obama travelled to Portsmouth, N.H., for the first of three health care town meetings, using the presidential bully pulpit to counter criticism of the health care reform proposals.
"There's been a long and vigorous debate about this, and that's how it should be. I hope we will talk with each other and not over each other," Obama told the crowd of 1,800 listeners.
Amidst the finger pointing and the shouting comes a quiet new documentary that offers another diagnosis of what's ailing the country's health care system. The documentary is called "
http://www.moneydrivenmedicine.org/">Money Driven Medicine."
More: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=8313170&page=1Single page version: http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=8313170Clips from the documentary can be found http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=mdmproductionsllc&view=videos">here & http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=californianewsreel&view=videos">here.