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News Release
Opting Out of OHIP
Resolution Adopted by Medical Reform Group
of Ontario October 14, 1979
WHEREAS the Ontario Medical Association has actively encouraged
opting out of OHIP by all physicians in the province, and the use
of a fee schedule substantially higher than OHIP benefits,
WHEREAS, although the O.M.A. position is that opting out will result
in better quality patient care, the underlying reasons for the O.M.A.
stand on opting out are as follows:
1) to increase physician income, by forcing patients to pay fee
increases in excess of those established by the government,
and/or
2) to increase physicians' financial and political control over
the health care system by allowing them, through professional associations,
to unilaterally determine fees,
WHEREAS opting out results in:
1) decreased access to care for lower income patients, who are
the only ones significantly deterred by "deterrent fees",
2) a substantial unnecessary increase in total health care costs
over time due to unopposed physician control over fees,
3) a geographically unfair distribution of increased health care
costs to the consumer, since different communities experience different
increases in fees according to local rates of opting out,
4) an accentuation of the traditional disparity between the health
care received by the poor and that received by the wealthy, through
encouragement of the two-tiered "public" and "private"
patient models,
and thus 5) the destruction of the basic principles of medicare.
THEREFORE the Medical Reform Group
1) opposes opting out or extra billing by physicians; for the reasons
given above, it is not an acceptable solution to doctors' dissatisfaction
with the present OHIP system,
2) calls for immediate action by the provincial government to develop
alternative systems of payment for physicians' services which will
a) end the practice of opting out,
b) deal with physicians' and patients' dissatisfactions With the
present OHIP system,
c) safeguard the right of Ontario citizens to quality health care
with equal access for all,
3) calls for a public list of opted in and opted out physicians
as an interim measure to aid health care consumers and to make the
present situation a matter of public knowledge.
Subject Headings: Abortion
Rights – Community
Health – Community
Health Centres – Drug
Substitution – Epidemiology
– Epidemiology/Community
Medicine – Health
Administration – Health
Care Budgets – Health
Care Cost Containment – Health
Care Costs – Health
Care Delivery – Health
Care Finance & Fund-Raising – Health
Care in Canada – Health
Care in Ontario – Health
Care in the U.K. – Health
Care in the U.S. – Health
Care Myths – Health
Care Reform – Health
Care Resources – Health
Care Services – Health
Care Workers – Health
Clinics – Health
Determinants – Health
Economics – Health
Expenditures – Health
Issues – Health
Policy – Health
Policy/Seniors – Health
Service Organizations – Health/Social
Justice Issues – Health
Statistics – Health/Strategic
Planning – History
– Hospitals
– Labour
Medicine – Medical
Associations – Medical
Costs/Foreign – Medical
Education – Medical
Ethics – Medical
Human Resources – Medical
Personnel – Medical
Research Funding – Medicare
– Medication
Use – Medication
Use/Seniors – NAFTA/Health
– Occupational
Health & Safety – Patients'
Rights – Pharmaceuticals
– Physician
Compensation – Physician
Human Resources – Pro-Choice
Issues – Public
Health – Publications/Health
– Social
Policy – Women's
Health
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