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Michigan Legislature to Vote on Autism Insurance Reform

Local news has recently become abuzz with talk of an Autism Insurance Reform bill possibly marching its way onto the agenda at the next meeting of the Michigan Legislature. The bill is sponsored by State Representative Richard Ball and co-sponsored by majority floor leader, Kathy Angerer and State Representative Terry Brown. Along with thousands of supporters, they are calling for private health insurance companies to provide coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorder. With the passing of this bill, insurance companies would be mandated to cover up to $50,000 for Applied Behavior Analysis. In addition, they would also cover therapeutic evaluations and interventions, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, intensive early intervention and Lovaas behavioral therapy. Currently, private insurance companies do not cover the cost of ASD therapies- forcing the families of autistic children to pay thousands of dollars, out of pocket. Another supporter of the bill is the Lieutenant Governor elect, Brian Calley. In a recent interview with Fox 2 news, he stated, “We have 15,000 kids, at least, in this state that are autistic. And yet we have less than 100 ABA autism certified specialists in the state. The capacity is just not there to treat these kids. The way that people get paid in the medical profession is through insurance companies. By denying coverage of this particular type of treatment, what you are doing is denying access across the board because there aren’t enough practitioners in the state, not even close, to meet the demand.” Lt. Governor Calley is also the father of a four year old daughter, Reagan, who is on the ASD spectrum. In the proponent’s argument, they claim that by forcing the insurance companies to cover these treatments, tax payers could see a savings of over $14 billion dollars; relieving the school districts of the financial burden of costly early intervention programs. Proponents of Autism Insurance Reform are pushing to see the bill addressed and passed in the legislature by the end of 2010. To learn how you can get involved in this initiative, please visit AutismVotes.org