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SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Rob Lynch, president and chief executive officer of VSP Global, wrote an article in Forbes magazine extolling the benefits of states offering more than minimum health benefits on their exchanges in anticipation of the California Health Benefit Exchange  reconsidering its original decision to disallow stand-alone vision care plans from directly participating its individual health insurance exchange.

Originally scheduled for Oct. 16, the next California Health Benefit Exchange board meeting is now scheduled for Oct. 30, at which time the board will revisit its original decision and decide whether or not stand-alone vision plans will be permitted to directly participate in the individual insurance exchange. Throughout the Forbes article Lynch supports his argument that “…policy makers in state capitals may be on the brink of making a major error by declining to include some kinds of health insurance plans in the insurance exchanges they’ll launch in 2014,” and he concludes, “Given that most businesses’ employees will end up consuming dental and vision care at some point anyway, calling these essential benefits will actually lower their average cost. And that will be good for everyone.”