Code Blue: Inside America's Medical Industrial Complex

How has the United States, with more resources than any nation, developed a healthcare system that delivers much poorer results, at near double the cost of any other developed country--such that legendary seer Warren Buffett calls the Medical Industrial Complex the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness? Mike Magee, MD, who worked for years inside the Medical Industrial Complex administering a hospital and then as a senior executive at the giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer, has spent the last decade deconstructing the complex, often shocking rise of, and connectivity between, the pillars of our health system--Big Pharma, insurance companies, hospitals, the American Medical Association, and anyone affiliated with them. With an eye first and foremost on the bottom line rather than on the nation's health, each sector has for decades embraced cure over care, aiming to conquer disease rather than concentrate on the cultural and social factors that determine health. This decision Magee calls the original sin of our health system. Code Blue is a riveting, character-driven narrative that draws back the curtain on the giant industry that consumes one out of every five American dollars.

About the Author :
Michael Butler Murray is an audiobook narrator as well as an actor and producer known for Jersey Boys, Frontera, The Day of the Grackle, and iCarly: iGo to Japan. 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 at 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.

Review :
A searing and persuasive expose of the American health care system . . . Readers will hope that Magee's knowledgeable, urgent indictment, following so many others in recent years, will lead to meaningful reforms.-- "Kirkus Starred Review" "Narrator Michael Butler Murray's performance is clear and concise. Magee's audiobook about the crisis of the U.S. medical system...The repercussions are real. The audiobook ends with the tenuous survival of the Affordable Care Act and the explosion and fallout of the opioid crisis. Murray is up to the task of performing this complex audiobook; listeners will benefit from his efficient approach." -- "AudioFile" "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"