Kansas has actually made a lot of progress on this front. Until a few years ago, Kansas allowed contractual exclusion, absolute and flat out, of services for autism based on a 70-years out of date notion that autism is a mental illness.
A couple of examples of the behavior of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Kansas before the present law (not Kate's Law, mind you):
When we'd take Mo to the doctor for an ordinary illness, ear infection, etc., we would get an explanation of benefits saying coverage was denied because autism was contractually excluded. Every time. Because 'autism' was checked on the doctor's checklist of conditions. Every time, we'd have to contact the jackals at Blue and point out she wasn't being seen for her autism, but for an illness that was covered.
When the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster managed to get pre-authorization for occupational therapy for Mo, after months of paying for the services, the assheads at Blue reversed their decision retroactively, and we were suddenly presented with a bill for thousands of dollars in services the insurance company had both pre-authorized and paid because they suddenly remembered that they didn't pay for autism services. This was a contributor to our filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy back then.
But there's still a lot of work to be done. We're talking 1 in 150 kids, and a lot of these kids could grow up to be taxpayers, productive members of society. Not all of them. I can't say I'm not skeptical that Mo will ever generate an income that exceeds the cost of her care as an adult, though it might be possible.
Lots of other kids, some speech therapy and occupational therapy can make the difference between someone on the welfare rolls and someone who lives independently and bitches about paying taxes to support people on welfare.
2 comments:
Examples like this make one-payer, cover-everything national health insurance look less evil all the time.
I can understand why you'd say that. But I'd hate to get my medical care from a system like Amtrak or the Post Office. And, having braved assheads in appeals with a private insurance company, I'd hate to have those same roles filled by what amounts to Social Security bureaucrats (or IRS agents).
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