I don’t know where to fall on this one. Autism is an on-going lifelong thing and can be very expensive depending on the degree. I had a step-son that was considered autistic for a little while (turns out he was developmentally disabled for other reasons) and there was some cash laid out just to test him (good chunk of change). But should insurers automatically be exposed to this? Maybe it could be an optional rider the insured can purchase during pregnancy. Since autism is usually diagnosable by the age of four that’s not too much cash to lay out – especially if the rates are kept fairly reasonable (I have no idea what ‘reasonable’ would be – that’s for the underwriters). Something to think on.
One of the main reasons health insurance is so expensive is the state mandated coverages. If I wanted to buy a bare bones catastrophic insurance only policy that does not cover pregnancy, chiropractic care, drug & alcohol rehab, etc. I can’t – because the state, in it’s infinite wisdom, knows better than I do how much coverage I need.
The cost of the additions to policy has been averaging about 1% in states passing such coverage. The benefits of providing quality early intervention and treatment is that for every dollar spent when the children are small, results in an estimated future savings of 7-23 dollars for adult services when the children grow up, based on complete removal of diagnosis and need for supports by 2nd grade in the range of 20-45%, and significant improvements in areas that might require expensive behavior management in later childhood and adulthood if not remediated early.
So the relatively small savings to health insurance now could amount to a larger cost in tax supported education and adult services housing and intensive health services (which might involve larger future costs in health insurance as a mental health and severe behavior management benefit).
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I don’t know where to fall on this one. Autism is an on-going lifelong thing and can be very expensive depending on the degree. I had a step-son that was considered autistic for a little while (turns out he was developmentally disabled for other reasons) and there was some cash laid out just to test him (good chunk of change). But should insurers automatically be exposed to this? Maybe it could be an optional rider the insured can purchase during pregnancy. Since autism is usually diagnosable by the age of four that’s not too much cash to lay out – especially if the rates are kept fairly reasonable (I have no idea what ‘reasonable’ would be – that’s for the underwriters). Something to think on.
One of the main reasons health insurance is so expensive is the state mandated coverages. If I wanted to buy a bare bones catastrophic insurance only policy that does not cover pregnancy, chiropractic care, drug & alcohol rehab, etc. I can’t – because the state, in it’s infinite wisdom, knows better than I do how much coverage I need.
The cost of the additions to policy has been averaging about 1% in states passing such coverage. The benefits of providing quality early intervention and treatment is that for every dollar spent when the children are small, results in an estimated future savings of 7-23 dollars for adult services when the children grow up, based on complete removal of diagnosis and need for supports by 2nd grade in the range of 20-45%, and significant improvements in areas that might require expensive behavior management in later childhood and adulthood if not remediated early.
So the relatively small savings to health insurance now could amount to a larger cost in tax supported education and adult services housing and intensive health services (which might involve larger future costs in health insurance as a mental health and severe behavior management benefit).