Code Blue: Inside America's Medical Industrial Complex

Written by Mike Magee, MD

Narrated by Michael Butler Murray

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jun 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781977368652

Reviews for Code Blue

[juliestielstra · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pretty much everyone agrees the American healthcare system (if you can even call it that) is broken. Badly broken. Mike Magee is here to tell you how it got that way, and it's worse than you imagined. Decade upon decade of collusion (yes! collusion!), connivance, coverups, downright criminal behavior, politicking, horse-trading, lies and more lies are the core ingredients of what Magee calls the Medical-Industrial Complex, the cabal of insurers, pharma executives, trade associations, academic and research institutions who have all joined hands (and sometimes fought, changed sides, made up, then fell out again) in pursuit of... public health? better medical care? high-tech disease-curing breakthroughs? care for the poor, the elderly, the sick? Uh-uh. Money. It's ALL about the money.

He knows whereof he speaks, having been a very successful part of it for much of his career as a physician, educator, hospital administrator, and finally a high-level honcho at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. This is where I can't shake off some queasiness about why, if it was so bad and he knew it, how come it took him so long to get out? Nevertheless, this is a detailed, damning, closely referenced account of the nightmare.

It is enlightening to read the blazing criticism of Medicare when it was proposed in the early 60's... because it uses the same language and tactics we heard about the Affordable Care Act under Obama, and that we hear daily today about any alternative system being proposed. And guess what? Medicare worked out quite nicely, thank you. The chapter on the opioid crisis doesn't describe much more than we already know... except for the back room, shell-company, sweetheart dealings expertly managed by the likes of the Sacklers.

Vivid, appalling, and very very important. Read it.