[Missouri-l] Fw: [acb-l] Health care reform proposal letter (fwd)

[Chip Hailey]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christopher Gray" <chris at bayareadigital.us>
To: "ACB Leadership List" <Leadership at acb.org>; "ACB General Discussion 
List" <acb-l at acb.org>
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 1:36 PM
Subject: [acb-l] Health care reform proposal letter (fwd)


> Hello to All:
>
> I am circulating to you a letter sent by CCB today to the Senate Finance
> Committee regarding health care reform.  It's an excellent letter and 
> hopefully
> may help you in crafting your comments as well.  These comments are due 
> today.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Chris
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 10:28:17 -0700
> From: Frank Welte <frank-welte at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: [CCB-L] Health care reform proposal letter
>
>
> This morning I sent the following letter to the U.S. Senate Finance
> Committee.  I encourage you to send a letter of your own to your member of
> congress.
>
>
>  May 22, 2009
>
> Committee on Finance
> 219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
> Washington, DC. 20510-6200
>
> Re- Health Care Reform Proposals
>
> The California Council of the Blind is the largest and oldest organization
> of Californians with visual impairments. Since 1934, the council has been
> working to improve conditions for blind and visually impaired 
> Californians.
>
>
> In behalf of the Council, I am writing in response to your call for public
> comment on proposals under consideration by the United States Senate to
> reform our nation's health care system.  I wish to draw your attention to
> health care disparities that currently exist with respect to Americans who
> are blind or visually impaired.  Several issues are particularly important
> to us.
>
> First, as you strive to address disparities in the American health care
> system, it is important to address the health care needs of blind and
> visually impaired Americans separately from the needs of others with
> disabilities.  There is a temptation by policymakers to think of people 
> with
> disabilities as a single, homogeneous population, and to craft a one size
> fits all solution to their health care needs.  That approach won't work.
> Health care needs are specific to particular types of disabilities.  The
> following paragraphs address specific concerns of people who are blind and
> visually impaired.
>
> Second, blind and visually impaired Americans need to be able to
> independently use medical devices to manage their own health.  Such 
> devices
> include, but are not limited to thermometers, blood pressure monitors, 
> blood
> sugar measurement equipment, etc.  Cost containment is a primary goal of 
> the
> health care reform movement.  Any meaningful national health care cost
> containment strategy is bound to include programs to empower individuals 
> to
> maintain their own health and to independently manage their illnesses as
> much as possible.  In order to do so, people will use various medical
> devices to monitor their health, administer medications, and perform other
> therapeutic activities.
>
> In most cases, medical devices required for use by consumers are designed 
> in
> such a way that people with vision impairments cannot operate their
> equipment independently, even though the modifications that would allow 
> them
> to do so, such as including displays showing enlarged characters or 
> enabling
> spoken output, are readily achievable.  In those few cases where 
> accessible
> devices are available on the market, they are often expensive, and they 
> are
> generally not covered by health insurance.  This failure to make 
> accessible
> medical equipment available to blind people at reasonable prices may seem
> cheaper in the short run, but in the long run it will result in an 
> increase
> in healthcare costs because blind people will either have to rely on extra
> home health care services to compensate for their lack of accessible
> equipment that would allow them to manage their medical conditions
> independently, or they will fail to properly manage their illnesses, so 
> they
> will end up in expensive hospitals, suffering with more severe conditions.
>
> Third, our health care system must provide the means for people who are
> blind and visually impaired to identify and properly administer their
> medication.  It is well known that a problem exists in this country of
> people receiving the wrong medication or they take their medicine
> improperly.  This places the health of individuals at risk, and the
> resulting increase in illness represents a significant cost to our health
> care system.  This risk is magnified for people who cannot see well enough
> to easily distinguish their medications visually and to easily read the
> printed instructions and warnings provided with their medications.  Some
> health care providers have addressed this problem by supplying medication 
> to
> visually impaired patients at no extra charge and upon request in 
> containers
> that patients can distinguish without sight and with large print or 
> audible
> instructions.  These practices should be followed throughout the entire
> health care system.
>
> Fourth, in order to be restored to full health, people who lose their 
> vision
> need more than surgery and drugs.  They need to receive rehabilitation
> services from professionals specifically trained to provide those 
> particular
> services.  These services include training in the skills that blind people
> use to travel independently in their communities, known as orientation and
> mobility skills, training in methods of communicating and sharing
> information in a non-visual way through the use of Braille and through the
> use of speech-enabled computers and other speech-enabled devices, and
> teaching non-visual techniques for personal care and housekeeping.
>
> Unfortunately, our current health care system doesn't adequately address
> this need.  If a person loses his or her sight, Medicare, Medicaid and
> private insurance policies may pay for eye surgery, and they might help 
> pay
> for some medications, but they will fail to pay for the services of
> orientation and mobility instructors or for the services of blindness
> rehabilitation teachers.
>
> By contrast, if someone breaks his or her hip, our health care system will
> not only help pay for the hip replacement surgery and for the medications
> that are required with respect to that surgery, but it will also provide 
> for
> the necessary physical therapy that the patient will need after the 
> surgery.
> There's no excuse for failing to address blindness in the same 
> comprehensive
> way.  This makes no sense.  Do blind people have any less need to be 
> taught
> how to walk than do people recovering from strokes?  Do people who have 
> lost
> the use of their eyes have less of a right to be retrained in personal 
> care
> tasks than do people who have lost the use of a hand?
>
> Fifth, there is a severe shortage of professionals trained in blindness
> rehabilitation, and our health care system perpetuates this shortage by 
> its
> failure to compensate the important work of these professionals in the 
> same
> way that it compensates physical therapists and occupational therapists,
> even though physical therapists and occupational therapists are not 
> trained
> to provide blindness rehabilitation services.  There are over 100,000
> occupational Therapists in the United States, but there are less than 
> 3,000
> professionals trained to provide blindness rehabilitation services
> nationwide.  Medicare and Medicaid reimburse physical therapists and
> occupational therapists for their services, but those programs don't
> reimburse orientation and mobility specialists, blindness rehabilitation
> teachers or low vision therapists.  How can we hope to ease our nationwide
> shortage of qualified blindness rehabilitation professionals if our health
> care system fails to even recognize their existence and to compensate them
> at the same levels that other rehabilitation professionals are 
> compensated?
>
> Finally, our health care system must address the need of blind and 
> visually
> impaired people for prosthetic devices and durable medical equipment.  A
> system that fails to pay for prosthetic eyes, magnifiers, or the other
> equipment that blind and visual impaired people need to compensate for 
> their
> sight loss is as absurd as a system that would send amputees home after
> treatment without their prosthetic limbs or a hospital that would send a
> person home after lung surgery without providing for his or her oxygen
> equipment.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Frank Welte,
> Director of Advocacy and Governmental Affairs
> California Council of the Blind
>
>
>
>
>
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