Health Care Reform: Next Step Merging House and Senate Bills

This week the Senate Finance Committee passed the America’s Healthy Future Act, a bill to reform the nation’s health system. The bill passed by a vote of 14-9. The bill must now be combined with the proposal passed earlier this summer by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Prevent Blindness America sent letters to House and Senate leadership and key stakeholders in the legislative process requesting that vision and eye health remain components of any health care reform bill. We ask our advocates to do the same: https://secure2.convio.net/pba/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=170

All Americans deserve access to and coverage for comprehensive eye care. Good vision is an integral component to health and well-being, affects virtually all activities of daily living, and impacts individuals physically, emotionally, socially and financially. Loss of vision can have a devastating impact on individuals and their families. The inclusion of vision and eye health in any health care reform legislation is critically important. Half of all blindness can be prevented through education, early detection and treatment. Vision and eye health services, programs and research are critical to public health. We know that the annual cost of adult vision problems in the U.S. is approximately $51.4 billion and that we can save our public health care system billions of dollars if we identify vision and eye problems early and link our patients to the care they need.

Prevent Blindness America sought changes to the Senate HELP and House Tri-Committee bills to ensure that eye and vision health were covered under wellness and prevention programs. Specifically, Prevent Blindness America requested that the HELP bill include vision and eye health in school-based health clinics and under the Healthy Aging, Living Well section regarding types of screening activities.

Additionally, Prevent Blindness America is seeking a new section to the HELP bill authorizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Vision Health Initiative, a critical eye and vision health program funded since FY 2003, which is similar to the oral health program authorized under the bill. The Vision Health Initiative’s goal is to identify preventable disease early saving sight and our nation’s health care system billions of dollars. The Vision Health Initiative includes projects to ensure appropriate follow-up care, a national data collection system, public education, strategies to integrate vision and eye health into all of our nation’s public health systems, and engagement of primary healthcare systems in addressing vision and eye health.

Under the Vision Health Initiative, Prevent Blindness America and its affiliates, regional offices, and expert partners across the country have established new programs in vision preservation and prevention aimed to improve the vision and eye health of all Americans. This successful program is identifying scientifically sound screenings for children and adults and ensuring that those who need care are linked directly to appropriate care. As the country moves forward toward health reform, public-private partnerships such as the CDC’s Vision Health Initiative are a model for effective, cost-efficient prevention and wellness programs.

Download a copy of the August 2009 Prevent Blindness America CDC report here: http://www.preventblindness.net/site/DocServer/CDC_Summary_Document.pdf?docID=1941