I've got a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies...
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it. Mark Twain
That sounds like an attorney. Funny, though, I don't know of any OD/MD/Optician on the board of the FTC. Nor any that are on the board of the FDA for that matter. All that appears to be happening is that more power is being put into the hands of consumers, and less in the hands of OD/MD's.
And one further comment: remember that when you comment about rolling back the freedom to purchase eyewear that the original FTC ruling gave consumers, you would be directly affecting MANY, if not MOST of the opticians who frequent this board. Opticians who depend on those consumers who were given the freedom to buy eyewear anywhere they chose. All of them brick and mortar stores.
Well I guess you should have thought about that before you gave us the finger, guys like me who support and value opticians. It's not like your jobs go away, they just get moved. You want ours (and apparently yours) to go away to a few corporations as though THAT were better for the consumer. This is why I accuse you of being sadistic - you take pleasure from what hurts us, even if it hurts you as well. Don't pretend to champion the consumer - the consumer gets lower quality junk. You don't have to take my word for it - the AOA pres told the FTC as much and backed it up with several studies.
This is a bit long and gets a bit political, so you have been warned to change channels now if that does not interest you.
I don't know about other states, but having been on the "O.D." regulatory board in California for about 8 years, I can tell you that we didn't exactly "profit" from regulating activities, at least not directly. One could argue that to the extent we could exert some control over the practice and practitioners, that might benefit us somehow individually. I just recall that we got a pathetic per diem for attending meetings, as quasi State of Calif employees. As I recall at that time our board consisted of 5 O.D.s and 4 public members, so "we" were always in control. Well, until a couple of us maverick O.d.s decided to take the consumers' side on a couple of issues. All in all, it was a good thing to have the consumers more or less in control for a while. After we 2 wildcards left the board (term limits, don't you know), the professional association members took back full control. Democracy at work. But the only advantage we get as a profession is that certain protections are built into the law and the board enforces them. I think the present FTC sees that kind of enforcement as the enemy and the consumer as the friend. They will push hard for relaxation of any restriction of free trade, which I actually support politically. Crazy liberal that I am I sometimes take positions that are against my own personal interests.
You aren't pro-consumer. You are "pro-consumer" in that you want them to think you're a swell guy. Being truly pro-consumer means you realize that what is good for them is not always saving a few bucks or being trendy or fancying oneself "clever" for figuring out how to order glasses online. It's a bad doctor that seeks to be his patient's friend and not his protector. There is no vast interest in protecting the consumer, otherwise the industry wouldn't have these oligarchs and bad actors dominating the arena and INHIBITING competition. You aren't saving the patient money, neither is the FTC or Congress so long as they enable this bad scenario. If you want to save the patient that money, more than the $5 they save going online instead of to a budget optical, then go after the monopolies. Go after the online retailers that sell junk that must be replaced. My health insurance premiums tripled in the past 3 years, and I'm a consumer 99% of the time. Where were you looking out for me? It's a joke that you guys pretend to be looking out for the little guy and their interests - health, vision, or financial. You may believe you are, but you're not. You're latching onto one thing you hope you can take credit for that in the end is worse for EVERYONE except these (mostly) foreign companies - the same ones your side likes to blame our side for.
Wow. I feel like I'm back on the board and you are one of the association members. I strongly believed then as I do now that our job was to protect consumers. That's what I promised when I was sworn in. When I found some professional protectionism going on, I exposed it for the good of the consumers. In California the Optometry board is in the DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS. So I joined with the consumer members on a few votes, like the one that would have required periodic relicensure examinations. I thought that would be far more effective than mandatory CE that doesn't even track if the doc was awake during the presentation. Got shot down, but you get the idea. The docs felt threatened. Of course back then (the 80s) there was no internet shopping for anything. Now you are claiming that if it's bought on line it must be bad for consumers. I don't exactly get that. Obviously there can be cheap glasses which may well serve some poor or remotely located people better than no glasses at all. And being cheap doesn't always mean being healthier. I've seen some terrible glasses that were also terribly expensive. and I ordered a pair of cheap ones to my Rx just to test the market. There was NOTHING WRONG WITH THEM, and I do know how to test for defects.
One thing I do know, the internet sales are not all monopolies or foreign businesses. Lot's of American O.D.s and opticians have internet stores. I don't yet, but I am planning to open one up soon for a niche optical product. It will not be cheap, but I will price it lower than the same product in my brick and mortar office. That is normal because the overhead for on line is almost zero. I personally am buying more and more things on line out of convenience. But everyone knows that you cannot sell everything on line. You cannot sell a contact lens fitting on line, only contact lenses themselves. You cannot sell an eyeglass fitting on line, but you can sell glasses. People will mostly continue to get their glasses from local sources because it's way more predictable and convenient. On line sale of glasses will continue to increase over time, but it will not annhilate the professions any more than on line sex will cause the birth rate to drop precipitously. Indeed, one could argue that on line sex is lessening the incidence of STDs.
They do not necessarily profit directly from it but remember:
Dogs bark.
Ducks quack.
Regulators regulate.
Five days a week, eight hours a day, they sit at their desk and regulate, think up new things to regulation and enforce existing regulations. And it's all for our own good and for the good of all the children.
And the sheep continue to happily graze.
Are you a member of the AOA? You should look at the stats of what is going on, many of them carefully laid out for the FTC by the AOA president this week. I don't mean this as negatively as it sounds, but I get the idea that you don't really know what is going on. You know enough to form an opinion, but you seem to not know who the players are and how they do business. It's not a matter of "all" of them being monopolies or foreign, but in contacts, 1800-CONTACTS has 75% of the market and is the epitome of the "bad actor" (vs. what, 1-2% of OD's being anti-competition?). The other companies like Essilor (French, Coastal.com being Canadian), Luxottica (Italian), Warby-Parker (100% Chinese frames), and Zenni (garbage and 100% Chinese finished product) - all foreign or effectively foreign, enough of it garbage, and all failing to provide the service that we are supposed to be FORCED to pick up their slack on. How is this good for the consumer?
"An AOA study published in 2011 with the Optical Laboratories Association and The Vision Council reinforces the drawbacks of online orders. The study concluded:
- Of 200 glasses ordered online, only 154 pairs were received;
- 44.8 percent had incorrect prescriptions or safety issues;
- 29 percent had at least one lens fail to meet required prescription;
- 19 percent of adult lenses failed impact resistance testing; and,
- 25 percent of children’s lenses failed impact resistance testing."
So the argument that SOME online companies are good or that SOME of their glasses aren't potentially harmful is a very weak argument for saying they should ALL be allowed to operate, especially with minimal regulation. Look at Coastal.com's website for example - they only pretend to be interested in ensuring the prescription even exists. Any kid can go to that website, order anything they want, and get it. Whether or not you think that is fine, the FDA's opinion is that eyeglasses (even just frames without lenses) are MEDICAL DEVICES. And this is Essilor doing it, not some dude in China out of the reach of regulation.
It's nice you are on the verge of retiring and you see guys like me as the enemy to be gotten even with over them rejecting your bad ideas while you were on the board, but even if you don't care about the future for those of us with decades left to go, at least care about the patients and doing the right thing.
It seems like the "you" in your comments are directed at me. I don't take offense though, as I've never given anyone in this industry the finger. Nor am I a sadist. Although perhaps you might want to lighten up your comments a tad, they might be taken by someone else as a personal attack.
Just one comment...many people believe that on-line stores have no overhead, this is a common fallacy. An on-line store ALWAYS has overhead, in fact, it can be many times the overhead of a true brick and mortar operation. You always need a brick and mortar operation to backup the on-line store. The only thing an on-line store lacks is the one-to-one personal interaction between two people in a physical location. However, there are still four walls, electricity, heat, air conditioning, inventory costs, manufacturing costs, insurance, payroll, etc. etc. etc. It could be argued that an on-line presence is actually more expensive due to the costs of maintaining a website, paying for internet advertising, and of course, access to the internet itself. If you maintain your own internet hardware, of course you have the cost of servers and backup power supplies.
Essilor may be a French company, however, it's US holdings are held by Essilor USA, not Essilor France. And a great many of the Rx's that are sold over its several consumer website are produced here in the United States in its own labs, those same labs that you may use if you order any Rx for your patients.
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