‘Money-Driven Medicine’ digests health care debate

Even as health care bills are being passed, many Americans are continuing to ask themselves, “What’s really going on?” A new documentary film, “Money-Driven Medicine,” albeit agenda-driven, answers many brimming questions and clears up quite a bit of confusion. In many ways, it’s a crash course in U.S. health care.

Based loosely on Maggie Mahar’s best-selling book “Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much,” the film offers an in-depth analysis of the $2.6 trillion U.S. health care system, why it faced and still faces so many problems, and what—the filmmakers believe—needs to be done to fix it.

Per person, the U.S. spends twice as much as the “average developed nation” on health care, according to the film—one-sixth of the nation’s GDP—yet a great deal remains to be resolved. “Money-Driven Medicine” takes the stance that most of this spending is wasteful and provides no benefit to patients. America is the only developed country that has chosen to turn medicine into a largely unregulated, for-profit enterprise. As Donald Berwick, president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, says in the film, “We get more care—but not better care.”

Berwick’s main argument is that the U.S. focuses most of its resources on high-tech and tremendously costly “rescue care” that patients need after they become incredibly ill, rather than on the preventive and primary care that would likely keep many out of the hospital entirely. Emergency rooms, Berwick points out, find themselves overflowing with people. Primary care physicians, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly rare.

A number of student organizations on Columbia’s campus would seem to agree. The Pre-Medical Society and Project HEALTH, just to name two of many, consistently articulate their concern with the misguided fiscal compensation system for physicians, which drives many medical students away from primary care and into high-paying specialties.

In many ways a well-founded cinematic Marxist argument in an uncompromising capitalist society, “Money-Driven Medicine” supports its point of view with an interview of medical ethicist Larry Churchill, who explains, “The current medical care system is not designed to meet the health needs of the population. It is designed to protect the interests of insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms, and—to a certain extent—organized medicine. It is designed to turn a profit. It is designed to meet the needs of the people in power.”

Pharmaceutical companies, the experts interviewed explain, produce and sell many drugs that Americans simply don’t need. So, while many of the uninsured and under-insured receive too little care, the well-insured often receive unnecessary and sometimes risky care. Veteran physicians stress that reform must begin with the doctor-patient partnership. “Before patients can reclaim their rightful place at the center of our health care system,” Mahar says, “we must empower doctors and nurses to practice patient-centered care—based not on corporate imperatives but on the best scientific research available.”

“Money-Driven Medicine” makes a strong argument for universal health coverage, but even audiences who don’t agree can learn a great deal from the shocking data the filmmakers bring to the screen. In a time of tremendous confusion, it’s a film that answers many questions, yet also leaves the viewer with many more.
“Money-Driven Medicine” is available for seven-day rental from Amazon for $1.99.