The Alberta government is looking to the private sector – and in particular to private health insurance – to solve health care problems. However, private health insurance is mired in myth and misunderstanding. The Bottom Line summarizes a huge body of evidence to get to the truth: private health insurance is more expensive and actually reduces access to health care. Evidence reveals that a manufactured cost crisis is driving the push for more private health insurance. This book examines the implications of the recent Supreme Court Chaoulli decision in Quebec, and offers vignettes of life before medicare. The Bottom Line concludes that the Alberta Conservative government is needlessly pursuing a US-style health system. In this highly readable and well-researched book, Diana Gibson and Colleen Fuller get to the real story behind private health insurance and offer viable solutions for strengthening Canada's public health care system from within.

Diana Gibson has engaged in policy research and education nationally and internationally on issues ranging from health care, inequality and labour rights to energy and trade policy. She is a founding director of The Firelight Group research cooperative and the Canadians for Tax Fairness, a director of PolicyLink Research and Consulting and a research advisor with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the University of Alberta's Parkland Institute. She authored the book, The Bottom Line: The Truth Behind Private Health Insurance in Canada.

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