An important message for the Members of the Kentucky State Senate on behalf of the consumers and taxpayers of Kentucky:
Please oppose HB 191, a piece of special interest legislation currently before the Legislature that will severely restrict our right to renew our contact lens or glasses prescriptions online – a right we and the citizens of 38 other states currently enjoy.
More than 200 Million Americans wear contacts and glasses. Close to a million of them live here in Kentucky.
We deserve competition and choice in the contact lens and glasses marketplace, not red tape and bureaucratic hassles.
Healthy adults shouldn’t have to make appointments, drive all over town, take time off from work, and pay higher prices just to renew an eyeglass or contact lens prescription when the technology exists to do it safely from home.
Online prescription renewals don’t replace the need for periodic comprehensive eye exams, and they aren’t being marketed that way. The online renewal process is only for healthy adults to use between recommended eye exams when their prescriptions generally haven’t changed.
HB 191 hurts rural customers, folks in communities with no eye doctor, and working families. It also costs taxpayers more by making it almost impossible for state and local government employee health plans to use this type of technology to save costs in the future.
Lastly, it sends a chilling anti-innovation and anti-telemedicine message to the rest of the country.
Vote NO on HB 191.