With the mid-term election shift that occurred in both the House of Representatives and Senate, there are many new relationships to be built and opportunities to be seized in Washington. When I visited Senator Pat Toomey’s office, for example, he was located in the basement between two Senate buildings as he hadn’t been assigned an office yet. It was a pleasant visit and because we didn’t have a specific “ask” or any legislation in the Senate right now, it was the perfect time to start a relationship with Senator Toomey. With this shift in power from one side of the aisle to the other comes great uncertainty with regards to health care reform. The message we received was consistent and clear – when all the discussion is over and the dust clears, there will be at least some aspects of health care reform that remain. Regardless of your political views, we have to ensure that optometry is properly positioned for inclusion in the new health care model.
This brings me to the first piece of bi-partisan legislation that we support. HR 1219 is the Hall-Schakowsky Optometric Equity in Medicaid Act. As you may know, Doctors of Optometry have been formally recognized as physicians in Medicare since 1986. Unfortunately, Medicaid fails to fully recognize optometrists as the primary eye health and vision care providers that we are. This presents a major access problem as we know that the bulk of the newly-covered citizens under the state Insurance Exchanges will come in through the Medicaid program. In addition, studies show that there are 3,500 communities across this country where optometrists are the only eye doctors.
The second piece of bi-partisan legislation we support is HR 1195, the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Improvement Act. Optometry is currently excluded from participating in some federal health programs like the NHSC. Approximately 11% of NHSC community health center facilities have eye care in the impoverished or underserved areas in which they are located. Again, this is another problem with access to care. The program through the NHSC allows health care providers to work in an underserved area in exchange for debt relief dollars but optometrists were not included in the 2002 restructuring of this program. This change would not require any new federal spending, it would simply allow our debt-ridden graduates to compete for debt-relief dollars that already fund that program and put primary eye care in additional NHSC facilities.
So check out the link below to see some of the highlights of the AOA Congressional Advocacy Conference and know that the present and future volunteer leaders in Pennsylvania are advocating on your behalf. Thanks.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUxtFabucM0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Daniel F. Russell, O.D.
President
Pennsylvania Optometric Association
http://www.poaeyes.org/
