1. Autism is considered a severe mental illness in the bill. what happened to the "new" scientific diagram that says autism is neuro biological?
2. It does not require speech, occupational therapy or ABA for the treatment of autism and uses a vague whatever is medically necessary up to the same amount of other medical disorders. The reason we passed Steven's Law is because insurance companies did not recognize ABA as medically necessary. In our state, Medicaid only provides this level of care from ages of 3-5. Some families have gone to court to get Hab M for older children. But there are no providers to provide hab M so in reality there is not care.
It is my belief that if this bill passes our medical care will be significantly less than it is right now. We currently can have competition. As we have seen in our state it is almost impossible for a parent to successful fight the state for covered services of medicaid. We already know that we can not trust the state as they continually deny, lie or cut services. The new insurance coverage will cover less that medicaid does now. In my opinion, once you are dependent on the state you are trapped. It is always easier to fight a private business than a huge government program. EPSDT is already being parred down and this legislation will provide even less than we are currently covered under this state! We need to give Steven's law a chance to shake out. Many self funded companies are starting to agree to provide coverage and we are putting pressure on the agencies to accept insurance. I believe within a few years we will have a state with good coverage. We will not if this legislation passes! The administration will set the criteria for coverage and they will throw our kids away. I have spoken with physicians who care about our kids and all agree that this legislation will harm our children. I agree!
Recent Comments