The Primary Care Squeeze

The healthcare system in the United States is failing.  While many other countries have created successful systems of primary and preventative health care over the past 30 years, the US has not, instead investing vast sums in expensive hospital buildings and lucrative specialty procedures.  Primary care constitutes more than 35% of all health care visits, but only receives ~5% of total healthcare spending.  Today, though the US spends $5000 more per capita on health care than any other OECD nation, the CEO World Health Care Index ranks the country 30th on measures of quality.  The Primary Care Squeeze is an investigative documentary that seeks to discover why this is the case.  Building on suggestions for policy reform in the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report “Implementing High-Quality Primary Care: Rebuilding the Foundation of Health Care” (2021), this documentary explores the durable institutional and structural factors that have limited the effectiveness of primary care in America. It also profiles promising new pathways for providing care.  But the film is not a lecture.  It’s really a film noir…