Insurance

We all know that Insurance and Autism put together usually equals the following for many families:

1. Debt, debt, and more debt- as many therapies aren't covered. One aspect that I think doesn't always get press is that even when it is covered, the sheer volume of co-pays due to the number of visits necessary is astronomical
2. Stress- Families often spend a lot of time fighting with the insurance companies. I know that when it comes to ASD, I have had to get my employer involved as our insurance company gives us nothing but contradictory information and unclear advise.
3. Denials- It is all too common to have claim after claim denied, even when you have insurance and have played by all the rules.

Personally, our company has a nuerodevelopmental clause on their policies which require our Insurance Provider to cover the cost of 36 visits a year. Additionally, there is no age limit on that.

Some of you may have noticed that the number I said was 36 visits- total for all specialists for an entire year. Once Little Bug starts going to speech therapy, he will use those up in 4.5 months. That leaves us with 7.5 months to pay for out of pocket- and we have insurance. We have good insurance.

I bring this up because of the following article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-autism-coverage_21nov21,0,4253235.story

I was so excited to hear about this and am hopeful that it will pass for them. I was also shocked by one particular section-

Further, Sen. Dale Righter (R-Charleston) argued the measure would cause the number of people diagnosed with autism to grow, therefore increasing premiums for other policy holders."I am not willing to place at risk a much larger group of people who might lose their health insurance through their employers in order to deal with this issue in this manner," Righter said.

First off, have any studies been done to show that states that mandate coverage for Autism have a dramatic jump in the number of children getting diagnosed? Maybe I am being naive, but I find it hard to believe that tons of people would go through the trouble to trick doctor's into diagnosing their children with Autism so that they can take advantage of this policy. Secondly, lets do the math to figure out the amount per person this would increase premiums:

4500- that's the number of families that qualify

36000- that's the coverage limit

12831970- that was the estimated population in 2006

$12.62 is the average increase per person. I could hang with that. In fact, I am sure that we do all the time. Every time an insurance company adds a coverage that wasn't previously offered, that trickles down to our premiums.