No contract talks planned between Liberals and OMA

There’s no sign of any return to negotiations between the Liberal government and the Ontario Medical Association on a new fee agreement for the province’s doctors.

Doctors voted overwhelmingly last month to reject a tentative agreement that would have provided a 10 per cent increase in the physician services budget over four years, to $12.9 billion by 2020.

Health Minister Eric Hoskins says the OMA’s demand for binding arbitration before negotiations can resume has created a wall blocking the path to a new deal.

Hoskins says the tentative deal the doctors rejected included binding arbitration for the schedule of benefits.

But he won’t agree to full binding arbitration just to get talks going unless the OMA agrees to act like other unions, which would mean full salary disclosure and giving up tax benefits such as incorporation and income splitting.

Hoskins says British Columbia repealed legislation giving doctors there binding arbitration after salaries jumped 20 per cent — an average of $50,000 — overnight.

The Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats say binding arbitration should be part of the discussion with Ontario doctors, but stopped short of saying they’d agree to the demand in order to get fee negotiations back on track.

Doctors have been without a fee agreement for more than two years, and were fuming after the Liberals unilaterally reduced payments for some services last year.

Hoskins says he prefers to negotiate any changes to the fee schedule, but warns the government could act on its own again if there is no agreement reached with the OMA.

“We can’t wait forever,” Hoskins said Tuesday.

The OMA issued a statement saying it was disappointed the government announced in Monday’s throne speech that it will re-introduce the Patients First Act, which the association said gives Hoskins the power to impose decisions about patient care without consulting health-care professionals.

Hoskins dismissed the claim, and defended the decision to talk about the “highest billing physicians” in the throne speech that opened the fall session of the legislature.

“The point that the throne speech was making, I believe, is that we need to get our priorities right,” he said. “We need to make sure that next health-care dollar is being spent on priorities like home care, nurses, hospitals and mental health, not to high paid specialists.”

There are more than 500 Ontario doctors who billed the provincial health insurance plan over $1 million last year, and one who billed $6.6 million, added Hoskins.