First Senate Bill on Autism

Yay! Good job!

Thank you Senator Gumm for continuing to do the right thing and for not catering to special interests. God bless you.

Special interests like parents of autistic children? Exactly HOW is it a proper role of government to force someone else to pay your way for you? Hopefully, this will be shot down again.

You said a mouthful, Frankie. Make no mistake, the Nick's Law mafia are nothing more than a bunch of pretend conservatives trying to bring Bill Richardsonesque New Mexico-style socialized medicine to Oklahoma. They will call you mean spirited and brand your questions as hate speech for daring to question this bill. Their arguments are, at best, diversionary. Let me throw a few of them out and refute them, just to save some time.

1) Insurance can't exist soley to make a profit -- to have an insurance company, you have to want to help people.

Bunk! Any business exists to make a profit. Done correctly, this is acheived through providing a service people need and are willing to pay for. If a business owner wants to help people, that's good and noble, but it's fallacious to say that any business can't or should be forbidden to exist unless they want to "help people".

2) There are times when government has to step in.

Again, bunk. This is the same argument used by Coburn, Fallin, Cole, Sullivan, Tancredo, Bush and the rest of the felons in elected office to bail out people who made bad business decisions. It's not conservative, it's not moral, and it's not a proper role of government. They would be more honest if they phrased their argument thusly: The Constitution and conservative political idealogy are fine, unless I can make a profit by abandoning them.

3) We're getting ready to face an epidemic of autistic kids in the next few years.....

Speculatory bunk. How do they know this? Remember when bruxism guards came out? Suddenly everyone had bruxism. Remember when Ritalin came out? Suddenly, every kid in America had ADHD. Remember when sleep apnea monitors came out? Suddenly, everyone had sleep apnea. Remember when sleep dentistry came out? Suddenly, kids shouldn't be expected to face and overcome their fear of the dentist anymore. Whatever the medical community creates, they also create a need for. Sounds to me like they're getting ready to stage another onslaught of something everyone needs. Invention is the mother of necessity instead of the reverse, it would seem.

4)...and how do you propose to deal with them?

More bunk! It's not government's legitimate job to force society pay anyone's way through life for them. This is still America, isn't it? At least until January.

If these peole would spend half as much effort in a legitmate enterprise, such as the MDA, geared toward voluntary private donations to fund research and provide care for autistic kids, their time would be better served, and their supposed conservatism would remain intact.

Frankie wrote:

Special interests like parents of autistic children? Exactly HOW is it a proper role of government to force someone else to pay your way for you? Hopefully, this will be shot down again.

The first paragraph of the article reads...
"OKLAHOMA CITY - A bill to require insurance companies to cover diagnosis and treatment of autism in children is the first bill filed in the state Senate for the 2009 legislative session."
Imagine if your child had a brain tumor and your insurance company refused to pay for the illness to be diagnosed and treated. You would be pretty ticked off if people were complaining that passing a bill would cause a slight increase in premiums. Autisim is not always easy for a PCP's to diagnose. Seeing a specialist is necessary. A diagnosis can land anywhere on a wide spectrum of autism...sometimes very severe. They deserve to be helped. It all comes down to the value we place on human life. Every human is to be valued. It's not like an adult who is choosing not to work and looking for a hand out. I think it's a crying shame to be a responsible adult with insurance that won't cover your child's needs. Most insurance companies will cover drug/alcohol addiction treatment. My goodness...a person has a choice whether they ever take a drink or illegal drugs! It's pretty sorry to turn your back on helpless kids that did'nt do a thing to be in the positon they are in.

Teacher wrote:

<quoted text>
The first paragraph of the article reads...
"OKLAHOMA CITY - A bill to require insurance companies to cover diagnosis and treatment of autism in children is the first bill filed in the state Senate for the 2009 legislative session."
Imagine if your child had a brain tumor and your insurance company refused to pay for the illness to be diagnosed and treated. You would be pretty ticked off if people were complaining that passing a bill would cause a slight increase in premiums. Autisim is not always easy for a PCP's to diagnose. Seeing a specialist is necessary. A diagnosis can land anywhere on a wide spectrum of autism...sometimes very severe. They deserve to be helped. It all comes down to the value we place on human life. Every human is to be valued. It's not like an adult who is choosing not to work and looking for a hand out. I think it's a crying shame to be a responsible adult with insurance that won't cover your child's needs. Most insurance companies will cover drug/alcohol addiction treatment. My goodness...a person has a choice whether they ever take a drink or illegal drugs! It's pretty sorry to turn your back on helpless kids that did'nt do a thing to be in the positon they are in.

I'm not the poster you're replying to, but I'll field this one. So because I'm complaining about using government in an improper manner, I'm for abandoning autistic kids and I place no value on human life? That's like saying because someone's against welfare they believe poor people should be exterminated. Let the private sector choose. If I want to help someone, that should be my choice to make, not yours -- it's my money. What you're talking about is theft and you're using what you deem a a good purpose to justify it, and telling me I shouldn't mind because "it's just a few cents" being added to my premium.

Insurance companies and employers who have self-funded insurance plans should have the right to choose in advance whether or not cover a given condition. We're not talking about defrauding someone by saying they'll cover something then going back on their word. That would be fraudulent and no one would agree with that. This law is a bad idea and I hope our legislators continue to realize as much.

Actually, not every one will be paying for this as one may think. All insurances have a protocol of what they cover or want to cover, and caps on the dollar amount a person can use. What the Gov is trying to pass is to mandate that insurance companies also include autism diagnosis and some treatment, which in allother states which passed these such mandates, also have caps.

The interesting thing here is some insurance companies do cover these things and never needed a mandate. My private insurance has always covered diagnosis and the treatments I chose.

What the Gov is doing is finally making a stand of who is responsible to cover these things, medical insurance or the educational department. Autism is a medical disorder, insurance companies should have covered this all along to begin with than shove it off to the educational system.

friend wrote:

Actually, not every one will be paying for this as one may think. All insurances have a protocol of what they cover or want to cover, and caps on the dollar amount a person can use. What the Gov is trying to pass is to mandate that insurance companies also include autism diagnosis and some treatment, which in allother states which passed these such mandates, also have caps.
The interesting thing here is some insurance companies do cover these things and never needed a mandate. My private insurance has always covered diagnosis and the treatments I chose.
What the Gov is doing is finally making a stand of who is responsible to cover these things, medical insurance or the educational department. Autism is a medical disorder, insurance companies should have covered this all along to begin with than shove it off to the educational system.

Actually, it's not about insurance. Insurance companies don't exist to lose money, and they're not going to. They're going to pass the cost along to their participants. Therefore, all this junk law is, is the second verse to Hillary Clinton's It Takes A Village song. This makes the cost of caring for autistic kids "society's" responsibility. In other words, it's your money doesn't really belong to you, it belongs to all of us, and all of us get to decide how much of your money we'll actually let you hold on to. To put it more simply, it's socialized medicine, and it's wrong.

friend wrote:

Actually, not every one will be paying for this as one may think. All insurances have a protocol of what they cover or want to cover, and caps on the dollar amount a person can use. What the Gov is trying to pass is to mandate that insurance companies also include autism diagnosis and some treatment, which in allother states which passed these such mandates, also have caps.
The interesting thing here is some insurance companies do cover these things and never needed a mandate. My private insurance has always covered diagnosis and the treatments I chose.
What the Gov is doing is finally making a stand of who is responsible to cover these things, medical insurance or the educational department. Autism is a medical disorder, insurance companies should have covered this all along to begin with than shove it off to the educational system.

I guess that's the point I'm making. The kiddos deserve the coverage. If it takes gov't Intervention for it to happen...so be it. I've yet to have a student whose parent's insurance company covered this need.

Butchey Weinstein wrote:

<quoted text>
Actually, it's not about insurance. Insurance companies don't exist to lose money, and they're not going to. They're going to pass the cost along to their participants. Therefore, all this junk law is, is the second verse to Hillary Clinton's It Takes A Village song. This makes the cost of caring for autistic kids "society's" responsibility. In other words, it's your money doesn't really belong to you, it belongs to all of us, and all of us get to decide how much of your money we'll actually let you hold on to. To put it more simply, it's socialized medicine, and it's wrong.

One could have the same sour attitude about someone else having a broken bone, cancer or any sickness for that matter. It's not socializing medicine. It's getting insurance companies to cover a medical need, like any other medical need.

Teacher wrote:

<quoted text>
I guess that's the point I'm making. The kiddos deserve the coverage. If it takes gov't Intervention for it to happen...so be it. I've yet to have a student whose parent's insurance company covered this need.

So what you're saying then is that need equals right. You realize, of course, that the burglar who breaks into your home, the gangbanger who jacks your car, and the armed robber at the bank believe the exact same thing, right? Their need gives them the right to your stuff. Sure, you guys want to make it respectable by bringing government intervention into it, but it's still theft, no matter how you slice it.

Teacher wrote:

<quoted text>
One could have the same sour attitude about someone else having a broken bone, cancer or any sickness for that matter. It's not socializing medicine. It's getting insurance companies to cover a medical need, like any other medical need.

Right. It's about more government control over a private sector enterprise. You can say it's not socializing medicine, but that's exactly what it is. It's forcing one person to pay for the needs of someone else. The insurance companies aren't going to lose anything in the bottom line and if they did as the result of this unamerican bit of legislation, it would be a travesty. The insurance companies will pass the cost on to the rest of us, which is also a travesty. You say these kiddos deserve coverage. That's your opinion, that's not a hard and fast involiable fact. Need does not equal right. Handouts and entitlements are part of the mess the idiots we sent to Washington have created for us, and this would be yet another of those.

Your insurance rates go up for cancer patients, smokers, law suits and on and on. We're all helping to pay for 'society' no matter what. Tell you what. Let's not have insurance coverage for other things, like stroke and heart attack patients rehab- people have them all the time. Let's not have insurances coverage premature babies. Let's not have insurance companies support programs to stop smoking.
We all pay co-payments, and they go up every year for many other reasons. This has nothing to do with socialized medicine. It's making insurance companies responsible for 'full' coverage and not deny so many access to medical care. How many stories are out there about a cancer patient's battle for coverage from their insurance company, and during the battle a procedure that could had saved a life wasn't allowed and the person died. I wont grobble over insurance rates increasing so that mother could had lived to see her kids grow up.
Same thing here, many parents want to see their kids grow up.

I hope you're never denied a medical procedure through your insurance company. Once you have, you'd be on the other side of the fence and realize money isn't everything.

Butchey Weinstein wrote:

<quoted text>
Actually, it's not about insurance. Insurance companies don't exist to lose money, and they're not going to. They're going to pass the cost along to their participants. Therefore, all this junk law is, is the second verse to Hillary Clinton's It Takes A Village song. This makes the cost of caring for autistic kids "society's" responsibility. In other words, it's your money doesn't really belong to you, it belongs to all of us, and all of us get to decide how much of your money we'll actually let you hold on to. To put it more simply, it's socialized medicine, and it's wrong.

friend wrote:

Your insurance rates go up for cancer patients, smokers, law suits and on and on. We're all helping to pay for 'society' no matter what. Tell you what. Let's not have insurance coverage for other things, like stroke and heart attack patients rehab- people have them all the time. Let's not have insurances coverage premature babies. Let's not have insurance companies support programs to stop smoking.
We all pay co-payments, and they go up every year for many other reasons. This has nothing to do with socialized medicine. It's making insurance companies responsible for 'full' coverage and not deny so many access to medical care. How many stories are out there about a cancer patient's battle for coverage from their insurance company, and during the battle a procedure that could had saved a life wasn't allowed and the person died. I wont grobble over insurance rates increasing so that mother could had lived to see her kids grow up.
Same thing here, many parents want to see their kids grow up.
I hope you're never denied a medical procedure through your insurance company. Once you have, you'd be on the other side of the fence and realize money isn't everything.
<quoted text>

Good arguments, but again, you're missing the point. It's not about cost, it's not about limitations and exclusions, and it's not about discrimination. It's about liberty, pure and simple. The employer and/or the insurance company have the right to decide what they will and will not cover. Your need doesn't give you the right to someone else's stuff. Pure and simple. We don't need more government in the health care racket. It's already way too involved as it is.

The employer and or insurance company can not in any way predict the medical futures for an employee let alone 1000's of employee's. An employer that does not include their employee's into this factor is some one I'd not want to work for. If that is your only argument, then I'd be thinking you're either an employer or insurance agent.
It isn't about liberty as you say, but dictation via what the employer wants to decide for their employee's without the consideration of the employee's needs.

Since that is your only argument, your days of 'liberty' are soon to be over since all states are passing these mandates. Many people will benefit from this even if you wont.

friend wrote:

The employer and or insurance company can not in any way predict the medical futures for an employee let alone 1000's of employee's. An employer that does not include their employee's into this factor is some one I'd not want to work for. If that is your only argument, then I'd be thinking you're either an employer or insurance agent.
It isn't about liberty as you say, but dictation via what the employer wants to decide for their employee's without the consideration of the employee's needs.
Since that is your only argument, your days of 'liberty' are soon to be over since all states are passing these mandates. Many people will benefit from this even if you wont.

In the first place, you're right about one thing -- if you don't want to work for "that employer", find one with everything just the way you want it. Good luck with that. It's his company and he gets to call the shots, or at least he did before you liberals started chipping away at our rights.

In the second place, you're right about something else. Ideally, a good employee will be indespensible to their employer, and the employer will do what it takes to keep them on the job. That's the market in action, and if it doesn't or can't work out that way, well, so be it. It still doesn't give you the right to steal someone else's livelihood to feather your own nest.

In the third place, you say they can't predict medical necessities, but according to proponents of Nick's law, we're about to see an epidemic of autism diagnoses. This, because they're making every socially awkward but bright kid an autistic these days, with new names and conditions like Ausperger's Syndrome being created almost daily. so they'd probably tell you you're not helping.

Lastly, your cavalier attitude about liberty reveals your liberal tendencies. That means you don't care about liberty, the Constitution, or the proper role of government, only what's in it for you.

The point is that they are taking their "liberties" at the expense of our children's health, Butchey.
1 in every 150 children born in the U.S. is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. If the insurance companies don't start acting responsible then I fear you're only going to have much more to complain about when these children grow up, as generations of autistic adults will need to be taken care of by state-run institutions and taxpayer money. All because they were denied adequate coverage for services and care that could have given them the ability to become independent and productive in society.

Autism Facts & Statistics

* 1 in 150 children

* 4:1 ratio of boys to girls

* 1 in 98 boys

* Fastest growing developmental disability

* 100 billion annual costs

* In ten years the annual costs are projected at 200-400 billion.

* Cost of lifelong care can be reduced by 2/3rds with early intervention

* A family with a child with autism will fund 3 to 5 million dollars of services throughout the lifetime of the child.

* More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than cancer, diabetes, Downs Syndrome and AIDS combined.

* Autism receives less than 5% of the research funding of most of the more prevalent childhood disorders.

* Approximately 1 million individuals in the US have autism

Incidence vs. Private Funding (2007)

Condition Incidence Private Funding

Pediatric AIDS 1 in 8,000 394 Million

Leukemia 1 in 25,000 310 Million

Muscular Dystrophy 1 in 20,000 175 Million

Juvenile Diabetes 1 in 500 130 Million

Autism 1 in 150 42 Million

Co11ier-StL wrote:

The point is that they are taking their "liberties" at the expense of our children's health, Butchey.
1 in every 150 children born in the U.S. is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. If the insurance companies don't start acting responsible then I fear you're only going to have much more to complain about when these children grow up, as generations of autistic adults will need to be taken care of by state-run institutions and taxpayer money. All because they were denied adequate coverage for services and care that could have given them the ability to become independent and productive in society.
Autism Facts & Statistics
* 1 in 150 children
* 4:1 ratio of boys to girls
* 1 in 98 boys
* Fastest growing developmental disability
* 100 billion annual costs
* In ten years the annual costs are projected at 200-400 billion.
* Cost of lifelong care can be reduced by 2/3rds with early intervention
* A family with a child with autism will fund 3 to 5 million dollars of services throughout the lifetime of the child.
* More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than cancer, diabetes, Downs Syndrome and AIDS combined.
* Autism receives less than 5% of the research funding of most of the more prevalent childhood disorders.
* Approximately 1 million individuals in the US have autism
Incidence vs. Private Funding (2007)
Condition Incidence Private Funding
Pediatric AIDS 1 in 8,000 394 Million
Leukemia 1 in 25,000 310 Million
Muscular Dystrophy 1 in 20,000 175 Million
Juvenile Diabetes 1 in 500 130 Million
Autism 1 in 150 42 Million

Stuff and nonsense. You guys are able to predict the expected onset of autism diagnoses because the medical profession is going to create them. No one is taking anyone's liberties by refusing to cover autism. Ever hear the old adage that your right to swing your fist ends at my nose? My refusal to pay for your kid's expenses doesn't mean I don't recognize his right to exist. I might choose to help you, but it should be my choice because it's my money -- I made it, you didn't. I'm using I in the generic sense here, taking the position of the employer/insurance company. The Nick's Law mafia may claim to be conservative, but they're not when it comes to giving them the opportunity to sweeten their standard of living at someone else's expense. You can't make that right, no matter what diversionary tactic you choose to use.

The stats above are real, Butchey. By the way *Asperger's syndrome isn't new or made up, it's similar to autism and unique in its characteristics. Autism Spectrum Disorder is just that, a SPECTRUM. Its a complex neurological disorder thats symptoms range in severity but are very clear in their definition. I know you like to act like its being blown out of proportion with your, "every socially awkward but bright kid" statements but the truth is that this is very serious.If you actually did some research you would see how ignorant your comments are.

Butchey Weinstein wrote:

<quoted text>
In the first place, you're right about one thing -- if you don't want to work for "that employer", find one with everything just the way you want it. Good luck with that. It's his company and he gets to call the shots, or at least he did before you liberals started chipping away at our rights.
In the second place, you're right about something else. Ideally, a good employee will be indespensible to their employer, and the employer will do what it takes to keep them on the job. That's the market in action, and if it doesn't or can't work out that way, well, so be it. It still doesn't give you the right to steal someone else's livelihood to feather your own nest.
In the third place, you say they can't predict medical necessities, but according to proponents of Nick's law, we're about to see an epidemic of autism diagnoses. This, because they're making every socially awkward but bright kid an autistic these days, with new names and conditions like Ausperger's Syndrome being created almost daily. so they'd probably tell you you're not helping.
Lastly, your cavalier attitude about liberty reveals your liberal tendencies. That means you don't care about liberty, the Constitution, or the proper role of government, only what's in it for you.

Co11ier-StL wrote:

The stats above are real, Butchey. By the way *Asperger's syndrome isn't new or made up, it's similar to autism and unique in its characteristics. Autism Spectrum Disorder is just that, a SPECTRUM. Its a complex neurological disorder thats symptoms range in severity but are very clear in their definition. I know you like to act like its being blown out of proportion with your, "every socially awkward but bright kid" statements but the truth is that this is very serious.If you actually did some research you would see how ignorant your comments are.
<quoted text>

You can use the same arguments you guys you to promote welfare, No Child Left Behind, free breakfast and lunch programs, and every other well-intentioned but illegitimate governmental exercise you'd care to name. If you guys would get off this "autism spectrum" stupidity, then I'm sure more insurance companies would cover treatment for truly autistic kids. The fact of the matter is, the medical community has a vested interest in labelling every kid who can play Mozart on the piano but can't dance or throw a baseball as autisic. Then they can haul in huge bank for treating a nonexistent condition. What did the kids who didn't have these made up "autism spectrum" diseases do before? Answer: They learned to cope in the real world. They grew up, went to college, asked girls out, got married, got good jobs and raised happy families. It's all this Oppositional-Defiant Disorder/Ausperger Syndrome/Social Anxiety Disorder silliness that caused insurance companies to stop covering diseases in the "autism spectrum" in the first place. The next thing you know, you guys will want to remove dollar caps or yearly visit caps. Where will it end?