Autism Heroes and Zeros No. 1

Autism Zero - South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford who vetoed legislation to require insurance companies and state health plans to cover autism



Autism Heroes - Legislators in the South Carolina Senate and House of Representatives who voted to override Governor Sanford's veto


This post is the first in a series about autism heroes and zeros. First on the list of autism zeros is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford who vetoed autism legislation. The heroes in the story are autism moms Marcella Ridley, Lorri Unumb and Lisa Rowlings and the SC House and Senate legislators who voted to override the governor's veto.


COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - Governor Mark Sanford has vetoed the autism bill, but the legislature overrode that veto. Both the House and the Senate voted in support of the bill Thursday.

The governor said he vetoed it because it would raise health care costs, "Well right now the mandates we've got presently in the system cost us all about $500 a year in insurance coverage. For the working family, $500 added to the price of of your insurance is enough to keep many from getting insurance in the first place. What happens today adds about $50 for a family."

Marcella Ridley spoke to WIS earlier in the week about the bill, "I never thought I'd be sitting here on June fourth - I didn't. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed in that."

People call Marcella Ridley, Lorri Unumb and Lisa Rowlings the angels for autism. For two years, the ladies have spearheaded the fight for legislation they believe will help autistic children. Their reasons are personal. Each of the ladies has an autistic child.

Marcella's little guy is named Winston, and the bill is actually named after Lorri's son Ryan.

"These are three moms on a mission," says Senator Joel Lourie. It's a mission the senator has spent a lot of time on. He says the bill would improve treatment options for kids with autism.

And while he says at first insurance companies were hesitant to cover the costs, now everyone has signed off on it, everyone except the governor.

http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6611170&nav=0RaPTfSq

Put ABA back in HB 1224 - A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

The attached excerpt and link are from Put ABA back in HB 1224 on Pete's blog A Perfectly Cromulent Blog Pop culture related smart-assery . The article is written in the blogger's irrevent style and is a textbook example of the need to include specific reference to ABA in legislation governing provision of health care coverage for autism. Whether it is Canada or Texas governments and lobbyists do not want legislation to require that Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) be covered as a health care intervention for autism. Even though ABA is THE proven effective intervention for autism, even though autism reates are soaring, and even though studies document huge long term savings to governments and society ABA is still resisted while almost any other treatment for any other ailment receives coverage. Pete's commentary is very well written, gets to the point and tells a tale of government unresponsiveness to autism which is as true of the Government of Canada as it is of the Government of Texas.


"Which is what makes the amendment to HB 1224 so maddening. After all, if I was feeling a little down in the dumps, my health plan would cheerfully cover the cost of my happy pills. If I drunkenly jawed off to Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović in a Zagreb bar and he broke my jaw, insurance would cover the emergency room visit and my subsequent weeks of pain meds. Hell, if I was an 80-year old man having trouble getting a goddamned hard-on, insurance would cover my boner pills, but therapy to help my daughter become a functional and productive member of society and not just another ward of the state after her parents die? We can apparently fuck right off.

So we're choosing to tell our daughter's story now, after being quiet about it for the last 16 months: to emphasize how important it is that this bill pass in its original form. If it seems opportunistic or self-serving, well...there's not much I can say about that, except that things like ABA and other therapy programs would seem to be the point of insurance: to insure the well-being of these kids who otherwise would be without hope for a future.

Finally, the only thing that really gave me pause about posting this was something that was said to me about the possibility SWSNBN might read this later on in her life and be mortified. My only response to that is this: I'm not a religious person, so prayer is out of the question, but I hope beyond anything I have ever hoped in my miserable life that my daughter, at some point in the future, is able to read this blog and yell at her father about it. I want that so badly it physically hurts."

http://www.whiterose.org/pete/blog/archives/010441.html