🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct1.075016.7879@mikejag.wimsey.bc.ca>  
steve@mikejag.wimsey.bc.ca (Steve (PrettyBoy) Barclay) writes:
.....
> Doctors, as someone
> pointed out, are not employed by the government, but they are paid by the 
> government.  That strikes me as a contridiction.  I was working on contract
> for a company doing technical work, and they were the only company paying my
> wages, according to Revenu Canada, I was employed by that company, regardless  
> of how I phrased or claimed it.  It strikes me that regardless of how the
> doctors want to look at it, they are employees of the BC government, and are
> not self employed unless they are receiving money from more than one 
> source....

Actually Revenue Canada has a long list of criteria to determine whether
an employer/employee relationship exists. These include whether the
individual provides his own office space, is responsible for the
general direction of his business, bears any financial risk related
to obtaining payment, etc., etc. I don't think there is much question
that MDs satisfy these conditions. So do contractors whose sole
source of revenue is govt contracts. 

Many people have professional services contracts with the government
(software development, accounting, legal, etc). These people, like
MDs, are generally considered to be self-employed. One difference
between these groups is that MDs have (until recently) no set limit 
on the amount of their billings -- MDs, effectively, do "piece-work."
But, most professional services contracts are based either on fixed-price
contracts or time-and-materials contracts. Now, tree-planting is also
paid as piece work, but, of course, forest companies know how many trees 
they want planted. If re-forestation was based on the same model as
our health-care system we'd probably have forests growing in the
median of the Trans-Canada Highway :). 

Anyway, it seems one approach to the problem is to
control the amount of piece-work that MDs do. Another is to adopt
the British model with clinics and salaried MDs.
I don't know how to do the first, and I don't like the second.
But the current approach of capping MD billings seems to be
a solution based on what would be easiest for the accountants.
- Rick
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Rick Morrison                            Tel: 604/822-6063
System Manager, Pulp & Paper Centre      Fax: 604/822-8563
The University of British Columbia       Internet: morrison@ppc.ubc.ca
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