Legislators talk vision plans, job losses and school safety

    A bill from Rep. Jon Becker of Fort Morgan to allow rural optometrists more control over their costs has cleared the House and is headed to the Senate.
    Under current law, optometrists who accept patients under national vision plans are required to give deep discounts to patients for services that the vision plans don’t cover, and that often means they lose money. His bill would prohibit that practice, leaving the optometrists free to charge the appropriate price for services provided.
    Optometrists testified in a hearing last week that those requirements just mean they cost-shift — pass the costs of those discounts on to other patients through higher fees for other services.
    The House debated the bill on Wednesday. Becker and his co-sponsor, Democratic Rep. Susan Lontine of Denver, got a little pushback from House Minority Leader Patrick Neville of Castle Rock, who questioned whether the bill would require optometrists to inform their patients about the discounts required by the vision plans. It doesn’t, Becker said, pointing out that the discounts under the bill are not covered by the vision plans.
    “We should not be dictating terms of contracts between private parties,” argued Rep. Kim Ransom of Highlands Ranch. Witnesses asked for the change “to create a level playing field. ... That’s not our job,” Ransom said.
 

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