News from the AOA's Blog

While every optometrist in the country has a right to be proud of our entire profession for our advocacy efforts during the health care reform debate, we should not pause for self-congratulations for too long.

This 16-month-long marathon on Capitol Hill was the largest, loudest and longest public policy battle ever.

The AOA stood up to a range of groups that were intent on trying to impose their definitions, limits and restrictions on our profession, and yet we stayed focused on patient access to care issues.

If national health care reform was going to be about new coverage for more than 30 million uninsured Americans, the AOA’s goal was to extend the focus of the debate to the more than 70 million individuals with coverage through ERISA plans that can and do discriminate against optometry.

Our objective from the beginning was nothing less than securing the profession’s biggest patient access win ever.

Certainly we have a right to be incredibly proud as a profession, and I am fortunate to be your president at this momentous time in the history of our profession.

And yet we are far from done. There is unfinished business yet to be completed in Washington, D.C., with additional legislative priorities that demand our attention. and our involvement and our efforts need to be redoubled as Congress will certainly consider any number of “clean up” bills over the months and years that have the potential to undo many of the gains that we have made on behalf our patients.

We must remain vigilant as a profession to protect our hard fought pro-patient wins.

What is won legislatively can be taken away by regulations if we expend our energy patting ourselves on the back instead of staying involved on a state and national level.

The AOA will be working with federal and regional agencies and stakeholders during the regulatory process to ensure that optometry’s key objectives remain front and center.

The AOA’s State Government Relations Center and our Third Party Center will be working with each affiliate in assuring that state laws and regulations integrate optometry into the health exchanges during the implementation process and beyond.

It is critical that you remain active and engaged with your state affiliate optometric association.

Staying in touch by closely following your state and AOA communications will become even more important during the implementation phase and beyond.

A doctor told me at a meeting this past weekend that over the past year, he has seen the most communications from the AOA ever in his 30+ years in practice.

Although I am gratified to hear such comments, I am reminded that communication is a two-way street and all optometrists need to take an active role in determining the future of our profession.

To be sure, our AOA membership stands today at an all-time high, and we have seen our AOA-PAC make some very significant gains in 2010 in both dollars raised and member participation.

While our success is worth writing about – we still have much more PAC money to raise if we’re going to hit our $1.25 million goal by Dec. 31.

If each member of the AOA invested just $50 in AOA-PAC – we could be the largest health care PAC in the nation.
I truly believe that we can achieve that goal.

You can donate by clicking on this link: http://www.aoa.org/x4827.xml.

Donating to PAC has never been easier. You can log onto the AOA’s Web site and donate via credit card.

Each and every member adds to our strength as advocates for our patients, and every PAC dollar invested in our future strengthens us.

We are a small profession, and it is our united voice that makes us heard us in Washington, D.C., and on Mainstreet, U.S.A.

Sincerely,

Randolph Brooks, O.D.
AOA president