Near the end of Wonder Woman, Steve, Diana’s romantic interest, steals a plane full of poison gas.

Warning: spoiler alert.

He blows up the plane, saves the world and dies a hero. Then Diana blows up Ares, saves the universe and grieves her loss, a tragic heroine.

It’s tempting to see life as a battle between good and evil.

Bad political parties make bad decisions, all the time, which is bad. We should fight them, all the time, because that is good.

If bad parties do something good, it probably isn’t good, because they are bad.  If we cannot see the bad in what they do, it is because they hid it, which is bad. So we should oppose them, which is good.

Healthcare is Political

After 50 years of state healthcare in Canada, some people can only see healthcare in black or white. They have watched governments twist healthcare left and right, with each election.

Politicians often twist it just to win elections. So some voters feel justified complaining about everything in healthcare, especially if they hate the party in power.

But no one is wrong about everything all of the time. Even a stopped clock is right two times each day. Continue reading “Political Survival in Medicare”

A smart lawyer said he sees this all the time. People fight forever to get something. They sue. They protest. When they finally get what they want, they freeze.

“There must be a trick. How could the other side agree? After abusing us for so long, how do we know this isn’t a trick?“

Five years of fee cuts, unilateral actions, heckling and sloppy legislation have left doctors feeling abused. The relationship between doctors and government has been torn beyond easy repair.

Negotiators have started to mend a working relationship. They wrestled for months and finally got a framework each team could support.

The binding interest arbitration framework (BAF) represents months of debate and attempts to find common ground. They shaped a BAF that looks far better than many of us expected.

Some doctors wanted a framework that would guarantee a win in negotiations. They wanted a trigger that would be fun to pull. But neither side should want to go to arbitration. A negotiated agreement should always look more attractive than an arbitrated one, for both sides.

Concerns About Binding Arbitration

So after years of asking for it, doctors in Ontario have a BAF offer.  Some have serious concerns. Here are some of the things they tell me: Continue reading “Concerns About Binding Arbitration”

Optimists see change as opportunity. Pessimists find change to be irritating, risky at best. Realists weigh change one case at a time.

Doctors face a paradigm shift in how they interact with government. Binding interest arbitration (BA) promises to fix a power imbalance between doctors and government. Many docs have wanted BA for years.

But will BA fix everything between doctors and government?

Are there reasons to vote against BA?

Reasons to Vote No

A few doctors believe that there are 4 insuperable reasons to vote against this contract. If you agree with these four, then you should vote No, too. Continue reading “Looking for Reasons to Oppose Binding Arbitration”