Bill Moyers will be showing excerpts from a documentary film based on the book by Maggie Mahar, Money-Driven Medicine.
The film MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE reveals how a profit-hungry medical-industrial complex has turned health care into a system that squanders millions of dollars on unnecessary tests, unproven and sometimes unwanted procedures and overpriced prescription drugs. Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has teamed up with producers Peter Bull, Chris Matonti, and director Andy Fredericks to produce a film based on Maggie Mahar's powerful book MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE.
After covering the health care industry for years as a financial journalist, Mahar wanted to write a book examining the system from the perspective of doctors and patients. The response from the doctors she contacted was overwhelming — five out of six called her back. The film brings their stories to the screen, portraying an industry where corporate profits often get in the way of care.
"Money-Driven Medicine is one of the strongest documentaries I have seen in years and could not be more timely. The more people who see and talk about it, the more likely we are to get serious and true health care reform."
- Bill Moyers
This documentary was previously featured on ABC's Nightline on August 11, 2009.
Money-Driven Medicine website
Bill Moyers' page for tonight's program
Maggie Mahar bio:
Maggie Mahar is the Healthcare Fellow at The Century Foundation where she writes the HealthBeat Blog, and the author of Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. Before she began writing about healthcare, Mahar was a financial journalist and her first book Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust 1982-2003 was recommended by Warren Buffet in Berkshire Hathaway's annual report. In an earlier career, Mahar was an English professor at Yale University, where she taught 19th and early 20th century novels and poetry.