The Business of Keeping People Sick: Gutierrez Critiques Profit-Driven Health Systems
In a bold and timely critique, retired physician Dr. Bernardo A. Gutierrez calls out what many in healthcare whisper about but rarely confront publicly: a system more invested in prolonging illness than in promoting meaningful healing.
In his provocative new book, Prognostication: Principles and Practice, Dr. Gutierrez argues that modern medicine has drifted far from its healing roots, trading patient-centered care for profit-centered protocols. At the heart of his argument is a question few dare to ask: Is our health system financially motivated to keep people sick?
“Medicine is no longer about care, it’s about throughput, billing codes, and checkboxes,” says Dr. Gutierrez. “Hospitals and corporations make more money from chronic conditions and endless interventions than from patients who understand their options and choose quality of life over unnecessary treatment.”
Drawing on nearly 50 years in cardiology, geriatrics, and internal medicine, the author exposes how industrialized healthcare incentivizes overtreatment, dependency on drugs, and futile procedures, especially in the final stages of life. The result, he argues, is a system that often prolongs suffering in the name of care.
The opening chapter of Prognostication lays bare the economic machinery behind protocol-driven healthcare. It explores how insurance structures, pharmaceutical influence, and defensive medicine have undermined physician autonomy and warped clinical decision-making. “When the system is set up to reward quantity over quality, doctors feel pressured to act, not think,” Gutierrez writes.
This message is striking a chord not only with physicians and policymakers but also with journalists, healthcare economists, and everyday readers. As costs rise and trust in the medical system declines, Prognostication offers a rare inside perspective grounded not in theory, but in decades of bedside experience.
For Gutierrez, the solution starts with education and honesty. He champions a return to prognostication, the clinical skill of anticipating likely outcomes based on a patient’s full picture, not just lab results or algorithms. By doing so, doctors can offer care that is appropriate, personalized, and humane without being manipulated by profit-driven protocols.
With clarity and conviction, Prognostication challenges health professionals and the public alike to rethink what good medicine truly means. In a time when healthcare is both a political flashpoint and a personal concern for millions, Dr. Gutierrez’s voice is not only courageous, it’s necessary.
Prognostication: Principles and Practice is now available on Amazon and through major book retailers.
About the Author
Dr. Bernardo A. Gutierrez is a retired physician and former assistant teacher of medicine with nearly 50 years of clinical experience in cardiology, internal medicine, geriatrics, emergency care, and end-of-life care. A strong advocate for personalized medicine, he draws on decades of bedside practice to challenge protocol-driven healthcare and promote compassionate, patient-centered decision-making.
Book Availability