What’s up Doc?

Today’s Toronto Sun headline story discusses how 160 of Ontario’s doctors are charging OHIP $1 million or more in service fees for helping patients. As always the Toronto Sun wants to know if Dalton McGuinty is wasting taxpayer money. But when it comes to doctors they are walking a thin line.

Firstly, many doctors spend more than a decade in school and rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition loans. Secondly, after finishing school doctors are tempted to go down South to work for private health institutions where they can make a lot more money than in Canada. Thirdly, doctors are compensated on a per-case service charge model, so if they are pulling in over a million dollars in revenue, they’ve dealt with a lot of patients and they are helping a lot of people. Lastly, the number the Toronto Sun uses is gross revenue for a practice, not their net income or profit. As the Toronto Sun has indicated in its article, approximately 40% of their gross revenue is spent on the expenses in running a medical practice. The article doesn’t mention it, but I would suspect that some of those doctors who are generated $1M+ in revenue might be paying other doctors to work in their office.

I want to send a personal thanks to those doctors for staying in Canada, for saving our lives and for taking the time to help so many people.

Cover Rating: NEGATIVE NEWS