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Money and Medicine (New Edition)

As rising health care costs threaten to bankrupt the country, MONEY and MEDICINE tackles the medical, ethical, and financial challenges of containing runaway health care spending. In addition to illuminating the so-called waste and overtreatment that pervade our medical system, this timely documentary explores promising ways to reduce health care expenditures and improve the overall quality of medical care.

MONEY and MEDICINE was filmed at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles and Intermountain Medical Center in Utah. While UCLA ranks among the nation's top academic medical centers, it spends considerably more than the national average on patient care. In contrast, Intermountain spends about a third less than the national average and is a model for low cost/high quality medical care. The dramatic doctor/patient stories filmed at these two hospitals illuminate the powerful forces driving soaring health care costs as well as proven strategies that effectively reign in excessive medical spending.

With remarkable candor, MONEY and MEDICINE captures the painful end-of-life treatment choices made by patients and their families, ranging from very aggressive interventions in the ICU to palliative care at home. The film also investigates the controversy surrounding diagnostic testing and screening as well as the shocking treatment variations among patients receiving a variety of elective procedures.

As the focus of health care reform shifts from the access crisis to the cost crisis, MONEY and MEDICINE makes a timely contribution to the debate over cost containment and deficit reduction that is heating up as we approach the 2012 presidential election.

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