Money-Driven Medicine is a documentary shot by Alex Gibney, who was motivated by Maggie Mahar’s book Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much, Money-Driven Medicine. The main idea of this documentary is to provide evidence about the US healthcare costs and understand why the country’s spendings per capita are higher than those of any other democracy. It is mentioned that a variety of care services and their largely unregulated nature are the two key problems that lead to $2.6 trillion expenses annually. The very foundation of US healthcare is the stakeholder-driven system that includes a lot of “wasteful” services, which are complicated by outdated and unnecessary procedures assigned to patients.
Reconstructing the main contention of the given documentary, one can state that a focus on billing drives both quality and quantity of care services. The doctors are paid for the number of procedures and drugs they prescribe regardless of the actual needs of patients. Even though some graduate professionals would like to practice in the primary care settings, they do not choose it due to their academic debts – professionals working with procedures receive more payment. Indeed, the US has specialized and advanced care, but overall health outcomes do not improve.