There was heated discussion about this on the Toronto Star website, but I missed the cut off date to comment so this is my first crack at this - as I have strong opinions on the subject that are also backed up with 32 years of personal and 10 years of professional experience in this field. I run a large group of medical clinics and have the real picture financially. I also grew up with two parents who also happen to be physicians who work in very different medical specialties. It has to be said that when my parents generation retires, it will take 2.5 to 3 new grads to take on their workload. I know this from managing new MD grads. From my experience I agree with the person who commented on this. I am not painting everyone with the same brush, but I have not found the same work ethic or desire to help people factor in to this generations decision to become doctors. In my experience it is more the desire to live the lifestyle and luxuries that this profession can bring. Unfortunately the desire to put in the time and work that in my mind shouldn't be a question, is not there. I was interviewing a newish grad with a god complex who literally said to me "I want to work as little possible because I take vacation every six weeks because that is how my life is set up". Needless to say, I had no interest in having him on my team. In response to the gentleman that brought up their school debt, please know that it highly subsidized. I am not saying it is not substantial, but I would think there should have to be a reciprocal time and service effort on the part of the physician or they should have to pay more. The new payment system for GP's in Ontario was clearly created by an MBA type who had zero experience in the field. They basically gave out raises without demanding a time commitment from the physician which resulted in less available patient care time and more people ending up in the ER because the physician gets negated if their patient goes to a walk but Emerg is free reign. I don't disagree with the payment model at all, if the doc committed to full time. They also did not cap rosters (a busy full time doc can provide quality of care for around 2500 patient if they work FULL TIME). When this came out, there were those who took advantage of the system and registered upwards of 5000 patients who mostly ended up in the ER for ridiculous reasons. I won't get into all of the details of the payment models, but if you are interested I am happy to share. I work in a field that is more specialized and fee for service but part of my job is to bring in private sector business to mitigate the risk of fee schedule changes. As in every profession there are those who are in it to make a difference and those who are strictly financially motivated. I am brutally honest with those people and ask them to consider if they really feel they provided work deserving of that level of remuneration and most of them know the truth but would you turn down money when that is the model. OHIP pays doctors well to do procedures and offensively low to spend time talking to patients. This will be coming to a head in the next fee negation and it my hope that there will be a real discussion and there cuts in some areas but increases in the most difficult and time consuming part of their job. The specialists also legitimately pay a minimum of 30% of their billings in overhead. I try to leverage some of that to provide programs for patients who would never be able to afford them otherwise.

As for the notion that everyone should get their OHIP statement for transparency - wow what a joke! The majority of Ontarians abuse the OHIP system because it is free. I believe in instituting a nominal fee such $5 to go to and ER in a non emergency situation. That alone would save the province the money needed to keep this failing system going because if it is your money, I highly doubt I would see you at the hospital for a cold (which side note is a virus that nothing can be done for except sleep and hydrating). If the province we to do an assessment on wasted dollars and submit that to you, you would likely have a different on the matter. I probably know over half of the "million dollar club" listed in the article and will leave you with this. Some of them are amazing hard working people are complete slime bags that will ride it out until the gravy train ends. I hardly think that if you and the people you know were in the same position, you would be handing money back. The system needs to be fixed in a way that rewards hard work and then I would have no issue with it. Lastly, to the gentlemen who made the comment regarding doctors being drug dealers for pharma - that was probably the most uniformed comment on this whole article. You are speaking from a position of zero knowledge in this field and I welcome the opportunity to educate you should you choose. at