“Some doctors are being really well paid to do this. They are very well paid to just ask people if they want to die, and then to kill them.”
Newsroom (22/09/2025, Gaudium Press ) Tucked away in the unassuming “family medicine” section of British Columbia’s sprawling 514-page Medical Services Commission Payment Schedule lies a stark accounting of death: the step-by-step fees doctors receive for guiding patients toward medical assistance in dying (MAiD). Dated April 30, 2025, the document – not indexed under MAiD but under “miscellaneous visits” – reveals payouts that dwarf the province’s publicly touted $327.48 procedure fee, potentially totaling $2,600 per case when assessments, consultations, drugs and delivery are factored in.
This figure, pieced together from the schedule’s dense rate tables on pages 118-120, marks a 64 per cent jump from the $200 baseline set in 2017, when B.C. formalized its MAiD compensation structure. For the roughly 3,300 MAiD deaths projected for 2025 – extrapolating from 2,767 cases in 2023, a 10 per cent year-over-year rise – the provincial tab could climb to $8.6 million, excluding rarer “Track 2” complexities that add another $600 per patient for cases where death isn’t reasonably foreseeable. These Track 2 provisions, introduced federally in 2021, apply to about 24 per cent of national cases, per Health Canada’s 2023 report.
“These figures aren’t trivial,” says Dr. Will Johnston, a Vancouver family physician and head of the Euthanasia Resistance Coalition in B.C. “Some doctors are being really well paid to do this. They are very well paid to just ask people if they want to die, and then to kill them.” Johnston, who has long advocated against MAiD’s expansion, points to a small cadre of providers – including Vancouver’s Dr. Ellen Wiebe, credited with over 400 procedures, and Victoria’s Dr. Stephanie Green, linked to more than 300 – as driving the majority of cases.
A Breakdown of the Billings
The taxpayer-funded Medical Services Plan covers 100 per cent of MAiD-related physician services, while Pharmacare foots the bill for the standard lethal cocktail: midazolam (sedative), propofol (coma inducer) and rocuronium (paralytic). Here’s how the fees stack up for a standard Track 1 case, where death is reasonably foreseeable – the pathway for 76 per cent of national MAiD provisions:
| Service | Description | Track 1 Fee (Units at $50.35 each) | Track 2 Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial Assessment & Prescription | Up to 9 x 15-minute units | $453.15 | $906.30 (18 units) |
| Second Mandatory Assessment | Up to 7 units by another physician | $352.45 | $503.50 (10 units) |
| Waiver of Final Consent Consultation | Explaining optional advance waiver form | $174 | $174 |
| Preparation & Procedure | 10-15 minutes for IV injection | $327.48 | $327.48 |
| Subtotal (Physician Fees) | $1,307.08 | $1,911.28 | |
| Drug & Backup Kit Costs | Estimated per Parliamentary Budget Officer (2020) | $1,324 | $1,324 |
| Total Estimated Per Case | $2,631.08 | $3,235.28 |
Sources: B.C. Medical Services Commission Payment Schedule (2025); Parliamentary Budget Officer Report (2020).
Physicians can tack on $146.18 for off-site drug pickups, common in home-based procedures – 40.2 per cent of B.C.’s 2023 MAiD deaths occurred at patients’ residences. Nurse practitioners, who handled 17.6 per cent of cases, bill under a separate salaried system but are assumed here to align with physician rates for consistency.
This mirrors Quebec’s model: Documents obtained via freedom-of-information request by pro-life blogger Patricia Maloney in 2023 showed $1,225 per MAiD death in 2022, totaling $5.88 million for 4,801 cases – nearly 7 per cent of all Quebec deaths that year.
B.C.’s opacity on these costs stems from deliberate placement: No dedicated MAiD index entry, and no itemized tables. A 2024 freedom-of-information request by The B.C. Catholic yielded internal memos from 2017-2021 revealing provider backlash over initial low rates post-2016 legalization. One briefing note warned that “restricting billing” had driven some providers away, straining an already thin pool of willing professionals. Recommendations were redacted, but a 2018 Globe and Mail report noted B.C. had “effectively doubled” compensation in response.
The request also sought cost-benefit analyses comparing MAiD expenditures to health-system savings from hastened deaths. None were provided.
Savings vs. Society: A Broader Calculus
For all its expense, MAiD’s ledger flips positive when viewed through a fiscal lens. The Parliamentary Budget Officer’s 2020 analysis pegged 2021 national savings at $149 million, offsetting administration costs through foregone end-of-life care. A February 2025 study in OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying by Western University professors Uzair Jamil and Joshua Pearce projects even larger windfalls: billions annually, potentially $1.273 trillion by 2047, if eligibility expands to marginalized groups like the mentally ill, homeless, elderly and Indigenous peoples. (The study, while citing ethical pitfalls, stops short of endorsement.)
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, dismisses it as “an academic exercise” – perhaps even a cautionary tale, echoing U.S. bioethicist Thaddeus Pope’s view of it as a “worst-case scenario” to curb liberalization. Still, he seethes: “MAiD is a stain on society, and any argument that it benefits society by cutting medical costs is even more reprehensible. Obviously, I consider all this disgusting.”
Johnston concurs, calling the skills required “no particular medical expertise. Anyone straight off the street could be trained in half an hour.” As B.C. – and Canada – grapples with MAiD’s ascent (15,343 national cases in 2023, 4.7 per cent of all deaths), these buried numbers force a reckoning: At what price progress?
- Raju Hasmukh with files from canadiancatholicnews.ca, Catholic register, Justice.gc.ca, cbc.ca, National Post
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