Carlson briefs federal officials on role of optometry as part of efforts in the deficit reduction process
September 30, 2011
AOA President Dori Carlson, O.D., meets with U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to advocate for expanded access to eye care for all Americans and present the Health Care Leadership Award.
With Medicare and other cuts looming on the horizon, Dori Carlson, O.D., president of the AOA, met with U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to advocate for expanded access to eye and vision care for all Americans.
The president and Congress are attempting to reach agreement before the end of the year on cutting $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit over 10 years, and some in Washington have been urging massive Medicare cuts beginning in 2012 and a scale back of a new requirement for pediatric vision care and other essential health care services.
The AOA is defending optometry from these attacks and any effort to single out optometrists and patients in the federal deficit reduction process.
“Our message is simple and straightforward: optometry is part of the solution to the challenges our country is facing right now,” said Dr. Carlson. “I’m making certain Washington, D.C., understands exactly who optometrists are, how advanced our education and training is and what we do every day to keep our patients healthy and active.”
In meetings with Sebelius, Alexa Posny, Ph.D., assistant secretary of Education, and other officials, Dr. Carlson briefed them on the role of optometrists in communities across the country, and the especially critical role of optometry in delivering care to school-age children and seniors.
She cited optometrists’ hard-won status as physician providers in Medicare and as the main provider of eye health and vision care under Medicaid.
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction was created as part of a deal reached in Congress in early August to allow an increase in the nation’s debt ceiling of at least $2.1 trillion – enough for the Treasury Deptartment to cover its federal spending obligations until at least the beginning of 2013.
The legislation includes more than $900 billion in cuts during the next decade and instructs the select committee to find $1.5 trillion in additional deficit reductions.
However, if the panel cannot agree on a large-enough plan that can pass Congress, there would be automatic cuts imposed on Medicare, defense spending and many other areas of the federal budget – with certain exceptions – by as much as $1.2 trillion, a figure that would be lowered by any smaller reductions to which lawmakers do agree.
With the HHS also now at a pivotal moment in the 18-month long review of a new children’s vision essential health benefit, Dr. Carlson pointed to the increasing national support for comprehensive eye exams to replace the broken system of screenings as the best way to help the millions of children to struggling with undiagnosed and untreated vision problems and eye diseases.
Pro-optometry leaders in Congress, including Sen. Daniel Inouye, (D-Hawaii), Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), are urging the HHS to make comprehensive eye exams the foundation of federal children’s vision policy.
“As hard as AOA doctors, students and staff have worked to be a force in the nation’s capital, now is the time to work even harder and to take optometry’s pro-patient, pro-access message directly to the White House, to Capitol Hill and to every government building in between,” Dr. Carlson said.
