It is often stunning how tone deaf some Washington policy makers can be.
Last month, UnitedHealth, the largest health insurance company in the United States, announced that it will no longer provide insurance through the Federal exchanges we all know as “ObamaCare”. Unsurprisingly to those of us outside of the Washington Beltway, the reason given was simply the ever-mounting and uncontrolled costs of operating under the President’s signature healthcare law.
Each of us is in the middle of yet another year of rising monthly health insurance bills. Each of us has watched as the cost of every-day healthcare items at CVS, Target and even Walmart continue to rise.
As the economic policies of President Obama continue to cause us to pay higher bills with the same paycheck we’ve had for years, it is terrifying to think how some Members of Congress just don’t get it.
Last month, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), decided we weren’t paying enough for contact lenses. As unbelievable as that sounds, that’s exactly what he thought. The “Pay more for your contact lenses” Act doesn’t directly force us to pay more for our lenses, it merely makes it very hard for anyone to obtain new contact lenses anywhere but directly from their optometrist.
Under the guise of “protecting us from ourselves”, Sen. Cassidy believes there is a need for further expansion of the Nanny State, Big Government, ObamaCare-type programs. He is somehow unsatisfied with the decades long practice of allowing consumers like us to go to any optometrist for a checkup and allowing us to take our prescription to anywhere we prefer to buy our lenses. Instead, Senator Cassidy believes it is necessary to create an unnecessary, and unneeded system which would force any company provided lenses to double-check that the order complies with the prescription.
As I had to recently go through the joy of having my eyesight checked and my prescription changed, I know how difficult it is for a patient to obtain our own prescription from an optometrist. But I know that it’s been more than THIRTY YEARS since the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decided patients have a right to have a copy of their own prescription.
If Sen. Cassidy was truly focused on “safety for our eyesight” we might acknowledge his good intentions, but just like the famous road paved with good intentions, this policy proposal is either a solution in search of a problem, or more likely another example of “crony capitalism”. The senator somehow misses that this important point about consumer safety was settled 3 decades ago.
Sadly, it seems the only purpose of the legislation is to create a protectionist system to force us to buy our lenses from the same office that gives us our prescription. Look, it’s easily understandable why independent optometrists would attempt to slow the verification process to another company that just sells contact lenses. The expansion of ObamaCare has made it hard on every small business across the US. But why would an elected senator actually attempt to change the law and create such an unwieldy and old school system?
Luckily, when I read about this poorly-informed legislation, I came across an easy solution. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is standing up for the American people over Washington cronies. As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Senator Lee wrote a letter to the FTC telling them to enforce their own 30-year-old ruling and make certain optometrists are following the existing law.
I’m glad that Sen. Lee is standing up for consumers like me. I’m glad he is taking the logical and easy path to do the right thing. I don’t know anyone in America that is willing to pay more for healthcare than they are already being forced to.
Perhaps Sen. Cassidy should take a lesson from Sen. Lee. Common Sense solutions often work best. I know an easy solution that will readily follow existing law and guarantee consumer health and protection.
Optometrists should simply print a clear prescription for us and automatically include it in the paperwork we receive after our office visit. Eliminating a doctor’s handwritten prescription would go much farther to protecting us all – whether contact lenses, eyeglasses or any other medical prescription.
