Prevent Blindness America responds to Senate Finance Committee's health care reform proposal

Today, Prevent Blindness America sent a letter to Senators Baucus and Grassley, chair and ranking member respectively of the Senate Finance Committee, to promote vision and eye health as integral to health care reform focused on prevention and wellness. We are calling upon Congress to ensure that all Americans have coverage for - and access to - vision care services. Vision care services consistently have been found to help prevent blindness, reduce vision loss, improve quality of life and well-being, increase productivity, and reduce costs and burdens on the nation's health care system. It is critical as we move forward that our Representative know how important vision services are to you and your family. Please share your story with Prevent Blindness America: email Jennifer Pennock at jpennock@preventblindness.org.

On May 11, the Senate Finance Committee released their Description of Policy Options - Expanding Health Care Coverage: Proposals to Provide Affordable Coverage to All Americans paper (http://www.finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/051809%20Health%20Care%20Description%20of%20Policy%20Options.pdf). The Senate Finance Committee, and Chairman Max Baucus, are at the center of the health care reform debate, and the recently released policy options paper lays out options for health care reform and a framework for achieving health reform goals.

Prevent Blindness America continues to advocate for funding for vital vision and eye health research and programs. To that end, we request that, for FY 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Vision Health Initiative be funded at $4.5 million, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) receive $32.4 billion for biomedical research and the National Eye Institute (NEI) receive $736 million. On May 20, we were pleased to join with our vision advocacy partners to send a letter to Senator Tom Harkin, Senator Thad Cochran, Representative David Obey, and Representative Todd Tiahrt to provide details on our funding requests for the CDC, NIH and NEI and emphasize the importance of vision and eye health. To view a copy of the letter, go to: http://www.preventblindness.net/site/DocServer/PBAVAPsignonletter0509.pdf?docID=1861. On May 21, Prevent Blindness America submitted written testimony to the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee regarding these funding requests.