Ontario doctors reject tentative four-year deal, creating situation of ‘complete uncertainty’

Ontario doctors reject tentative four-year deal, creating situation of ‘complete uncertainty’ | National Post:
"Ontario doctors have voted resoundingly to reject a tentative fee agreement with the provincial government, creating a situation of “complete uncertainty” and prolonging an internal battle within the medical profession.
Sixty-three per cent of its members who voted Sunday rejected a four-year deal, the Ontario Medical Association said Monday.
The four-year tentative deal included an annual 2.5 per cent increase to the total budget for doctors’ fees, now about $11.5 billion a year. It included a promise not to impose further cuts on doctors, as the Liberal government did last year and in its 2012 round of bargaining. It included $370 million over the four years to encourage doctors to “co-manage” the system with the provincial health ministry in a bid to reduce costs.
Health Minister Eric Hoskins said was disappointed with the vote, while opposition parties charged the government with poisoning talks from the start by imposing cuts.
It’s now hard to envision a quiet return to the negotiating table.
“The OMA has in some ways weakened itself by exposing its divisions,” said Nelson Wiseman, director of the Canadian studies program at the University of Toronto."