Squandering Billions is a brutally frank indictment of health spending. The book demonstrates that the absolute power of medical doctors, pharmaceutical companies, health bureaucrats, and hospital administrators enshrines mediocrity at the expense of patients. Mistakes, inefficiency, and malpractice in the Canadian health system may be causing ten times or more unnecessary deaths a year than the toll from traffic accidents (3,000) and crime (500). Some acute care hospitals seem to have become disease factories. Why do health care tragedies not face the scrutiny typically focused upon other accidental and wrongful deaths? Canadian medicare was designed to insure the patient, not the practitioner. Why, then, are medical doctors and hospitals exempted from competition? Evidence shows conclusively that expanded use of community health centres, nurse practitioners, doctors of chiropractic, and others can be more effective and less expensive within their area of expertise. This book goes where official commissions have been afraid to travel.

Gary Bannerman's profile page

Dr. Don Nixdorf has been among Canada's most prominent health professionals for more than a generation, a member of national and provincial agencies and a participant in numerous studies and Commissions. The Executive-Director of the British Columbia Chiropractic Association since 1985, he is also a veteran of countless encounters in all forms of media on behalf of his profession, including his own open-line radio health program. His work on behalf of the chiropractic profession keeps him in frequent contact with health ministers, other professionals, media, insurance companies and community organizations. Gary Bannerman is a veteran journalist, publisher, public affairs broadcaster and the author of several books. He has served on the board of directors of corporations of various sizes, and as a communications consultant to CEOs and senior management of many companies. He has been published in scores of magazines and newspapers and, for 16 years, he hosted Western Canada's most successful news talk radio show. His work has been honored with numerous prestigious awards.

Don D.C. Nixdorf's profile page