Ohio Press Conference Describes NCB's Flaws
OAMES press event includes Rep. Ryan (D-Ohio) and patient who outline program's negative impact.
The Ohio Association for Medical Equipment Services (OAMES) and Rational 360, AAHoemcare’s public relations firm, recently hosted a telephone press conference for the media that call focused on the harmful impact of the bid program for patients and providers in Cincinnati and Cleveland, Round One bidding areas.
Speakers on the Feb. 4 call included Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) who is a cosponsor of Rep. Kendrick Meek’s (D-Fla.) bill, H.R. 3790, to eliminate the competitive bidding program.
“Competitive bidding sounds good, but it will only reduce access to care, choice, and quality of care for thousands of homecare patients,” Ryan said to national and state journalists on the call. “With the economy just starting to recover, now is not the time to adopt ‘competitive’ bidding, which will kill jobs and small businesses.”
Thirteen out of the 18 members of Ohio’s House delegation have cosponsored H.R. 3790, and various disability groups support the Meek bill as well, including the Cerebral Palsy Association of Ohio, the Ohio Society for Respiratory Care, and many groups such as the ALS Association, the American Association of People with Disabilities, International Ventilator Users Network, Muscular Dystrophy Association, National Emphysema/COPD Association, National Spinal Cord Injury Association and Post-Polio Health International.
“When we had a blackout in 2007, I called my homecare provider and was able to rely on him for batteries for my ventilator and other home equipment devices to keep me going during the outage,” recalld J.D. Jones, a 49-year-old Medicare patient with pulmonary hypertension who participated in the call. “Under competitive bidding, I would have had to put calls in to several different providers during an emergency, none of whom I know or trust.”
Also joining the call to speak out against the bidding scheme was John Reed of the Cincinnati-area HME company PRO2 Respiratory Services and Joe Petrolla and Anthony LaCute of Seeley Medical.
Among the stories that resulted from the call was a segment broadcast on WFMJ an ABC affiliate in Youngstown, Ohio, which is posted on the affiliate’s web site.