Dig deeper for eye exams
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
Thanks to state Rep. Thomas Wright and other loyal members of Speaker Jim Black’s flock, you and North Carolina’s other taxpayers might pay Dr. Black and his fellow optometrists $8.5 million to give kindergarten kids full-scale eye exams, whether they need them or not.
Instead of repealing the requirement that Black sneaked into law last year - a requirement that pediatricians and opthalmologists insist is unnecessary - Wright and other House Democrats want to take another $6.5 million in public money to pay the people who would do the exams. That’s on top of $2 million the Black sheep set aside last year.
Your money would be spent for charitable purposes, of course. It would help poor parents pay bills imposed on them by the optometrists’ lobby. Some of its members sent incomplete checks to Black to use as he saw fit.
The question is whether the state Senate will go along. It’s scheduled to vote Tuesday on Julia Boseman’s bill to repeal the eye-exam requirement.
But as Black fights to protect an economic boon for his own profession, he finally seems resigned to getting rid of video poker, at least in phases. (more…)
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