Marge Axelrad: Editorial Director |
As of this writing, the stock market had hit 10,000 again, several technology and supply companies’ third quarter earnings were positive (compared to last year at this time). With the exception of auto sales, general retail sales in some sectors were ticking up in September and most of the observers at our industry’s International Vision Expo West show were satisfied by the purposeful buying activity of ECPs and retailers attending.
It’s far from ‘out of the woods,’ but the news was encouraging.
Speaking however of forest-and-trees, the country’s senators, congressmen and every single company connected with health care delivery are battling the huge issue of health care reform. The debate is drawing into it the voices of many inside our vision care delivery system, from organized optometry and ophthalmology, to ODs challenging their stance, and many of the country’s largest managed vision care providers and associations.
Read our recaps in this issue (pages 10 and 57) and you can see that the issues and practical questions being raised are challenging some of the most fundamental assumptions and structures of our business.
Some of the comments being voiced out there have to do with the immediate issues at hand.
Others appear to reflect long-simmering attitudes in the vision care world—about who’s the driver (or who determines who’s the driver) of valuing eyecare services and how product is being compensated—things that are, to put it mildly, complicated by the many factions and fractions in this world.
In times like these, division is not good; unity is better. Here’s hoping that “vision” wins out. ■