It has been more than 10 years since United States doctors began offering Lasik eye correction surgery to financially-able patients. But while a decade has passed, little has changed. Today, Lasik operations still cost thousands of dollars, and there is still no guarantee of perfect eye correction.

An article over at Centre Daily Times takes up this issue, and examines the reality of Lasik surgery today. From this:

But there’s still no guarantee of 20/20 eyesight, the procedure’s long-term safety is unknown and one recent study showed that almost 18 percent of patients require a second Lasik treatment. A lack of health insurance coverage keeps the procedure a luxury item, affordable only to people who can spare $3,000 to $5,000.

To this:

The average Lasik patient is about 39 years old with an income of about $88,000, said Dave Harmon, president of Market Scope, a company that tracks the industry. “Their education level is significantly higher than average,” Harmon said. “Very few people in their 20s have it done. Very few people in their 50s have it done.”

It is pretty clear who can afford Lasik, and who can’t. But the most interesting development tracked by the article is the “…technology arms race…” among vision clinics. I’m sure you can still remember the post just before this one on iris registration technology. And that’s just one example of the many new technologies that consumers have to keep up with if they do not want to drown in a sea of confusion.

But it isn’t all just doom and gloom. There have been many postive developments regarding Lasik surgery recently, including subsidised Lasik programs for the needy and cheap Lasik operations overseas. All this give us hope that Lasik will be a perfectly safe and perfectly affordable technology a decade more down the road.