Dear Majority Leader Thune, Minority Leader Schumer, Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Cantwell, and distinguished senators of the 119th Congress,
The Coalition for Contact Lens Consumer Choice is a bipartisan coalition of consumer-focused groups, and companies who compete in the contact lens marketplace and think tanks and advocacy organizations that weigh in on policy proposals in the marketplace of ideas. We stand united as the voice for the close to 50 million Americans who wear contact lenses in this country, and we urge you to stand united against a bill that undermines and undercuts the rights of contact lens consumers.
Last year, we wrote you in strong opposition to H.R 2748, legislation introduced in the 118th Congress that would increase costs for contact lens consumers and reduce competition in the contact lens market. Sponsored by Congressman Burgess (R-TX), H.R. 2748, the so-called “Contact Lens Prescription Modernization Act”, is introduced in every recent Congress as part of an orchestrated decades-long attempt to weaken the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act (FCLCA) and the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) updated Contact Lens Rule (CLR) issued unanimously in 2020. We fully expect it to be reintroduced again this year and we need your help to stop it in its tracks.
Please oppose any efforts to move bills like H.R 2748 in the 119th Congress. As we have seen in recent public opinion surveys, Americans are tired of skyrocketing prices and simply can’t afford to pay more for their contact lenses.
The FCLCA was enacted in 2004 with strong bi-partisan support to promote competition and consumer choice in a marketplace that was uniquely saddled with state laws that protected optometrists’ ability to sell the products they prescribe. Since the FCLCA was enacted, the contact lens marketplace has been positively transformed. Now, consumers can shop for contact lenses wherever and whenever they choose — at their optometrist’s office, at their local big box store, neighborhood pharmacy, online vendors, over the phone, or through an app. This array of options also yields savings for taxpayers, who help underwrite government employee insurance and other programs providing some form of vision care benefit. Consumers have a wide variety of choices when it comes to buying contact lenses, but they need their prescription to take advantage of this competitive marketplace by comparison shopping.
Yet, since the day the FCLCA was signed into law more than two decades ago, there have been continual attempts to weaken or gut the law by rolling back vital consumer protections and rights at every turn. One concerning approach taken recently by opponents of the FCLCA and the optometric lobby has been to try and eliminate contact lens prescription verification by phone, which denies contact lens consumers the ability to take their prescription and shop where and when they want for contact lenses.
Bills like H.R. 2748, The Contact Lens Prescription Verification Modernization Act, are merely a protectionist ploy to more deeply entrench the optometrists’ ability to sell what they prescribe and upset the carefully balanced consumer and safety protections set out in the FCLCA. This bill seeks to end the most accurate, cost-effective, and efficient prescription verification option created within the FCLCA by banning automated phone prescription verification.
The optometric industry and their trade association, the American Optometric Association, have the power to end automated phone prescription verification on their own, without Congressional action. They could eliminate the need for the automated system by simply releasing a copy of a customer’s contact lens prescription, which they are legally mandated to do. Imagine how many more consumers could be receiving a copy of their contact lens prescription if the AOA directed the resources they are using to promote H.R. 2748 toward helping their members resolve questions and compliance issues with the law protecting contact lens consumers.
Consumers’ rights and competition in the contact lens market will be greatly harmed if legislation like H.R. 2748 is passed by Congress. Prices would go up and consumer choice would be severely limited. On behalf of the millions of Americans who wear contact lenses in this country, we ask for your help in protecting our rights.
Sincerely,
The Coalition for Contact Lens Consumer Choice