Sharon Angle had not pissed me off, frankly. At least, not until now.
She doesn't have any idea.
8 years ago tomorrow, I was staring through the lens of my video camera taping my son's birthday celebration. We had the requisite dinner with my family. We had some cake and ice cream. Then came the time for the presents. I was recording all of these events, but I especially wanted to record my son opening his many presents for his 2nd birthday.
That's when it hit me. My son was in the middle of the frenetic opening of presents. He didn't open a single one. His cousins and his sister did most of that. I was watching one of them helping him. My son wasn't trying to open anything. My son wasn't responding to anything surrounding him. It was like watching one of those commercials where you see people dashing across the screen in sped-up motion while the person in the middle of it all is moving at normal speed, practically unaware of their surroundings. That was my son.
I turned to my wife and said, "Something is wrong."
A few weeks later, we saw a doctor that was recommended by another doctor and we got the diagnosis. My son was autistic.
We were able to get him therapy. It's called Applied Behavioral Analysis. It is comprised of many exercises with a qualified licensed therapist in daily sessions. They were wonderful. They loved my son, though sometimes he didn't like the therapy much. He did improve, but he still has a ways to go. We decided to cut off the therapy four years ago. One of the deciding factors was money. This therapy does not come cheap and we are still paying it off.
For a while, the therapy was covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield through my company. This was a great help. Blue Cross is one of the very few companies that actually pays for part of this kind of therapy. It really helped us financially.
After one year of this coverage, my company was purged. Purging is a technique where a health care company raises the rates so high that the company has no choice by to drop them. My company was less than 100 people; a small business that couldn't afford to spend that kind of money. We had to drop the coverage and go somewhere else. Somewhere that didn't include coverage for autism therapy.
We did get some help from the state (which is more than I can say for most states). We got in just in time. Recently, our governor and his medical team have decided to narrow the definition of who gets this kind of help. Only children who are the most severe can get assistance from the state. My son does not throw things. He rarely hits anyone (and when he does it's a pretty pathetic hit). He does throw tantrums on occasion. And he likes to hug. A lot.
He wouldn't qualify now for any help. This means that it would all come out of our pockets. Even with all of this help, we still spent tens of thousands of dollars of our own money to make sure that this therapy would continue until he was six years old.
I have a very good job that pays quite nicely. I live in a nice neighborhood. My wife works as well. Even with all of these advantages, we have had problems keeping up financially. Before the housing bubble, we refinanced our house to get some of that money and even took out a third mortgage. It has taken several years, but we are now just beginning to see daylight as far as our finances go. It wasn't easy. I often think of the people who don't have it as good as I do. How do they cope? What do they do?
When I heard Sharron Angle put in air quotes the word "autism" it made my blood boil.
"They just passed the latest one. Everything they want to throw at us is covered under 'autism' so that's a mandate that you have to pay for," she continued. "How about maternity leave? I'm not going to have any more babies but I sure get to pay for it on my insurance. Those are the kinds of things we want to get rid of."
ABC News September 24, 2010
In a CNN article just a week ago, they listed the states that required insurance companies to cover autism treatments.
In 2010, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire and Vermont enacted legislation requiring insurance coverage for autism, according to NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures).
Paul Frysh "Moving out of state to get autism treatment" CNN.com Sept. 17, 2010
You might have noticed that Nevada is not on that list. There currently is a bill being debated (AB 162) to do just this, but I believe that it's fate is still far from certain.
Please read this article on a couple with two kids with autism.
What is readily apparent is that she has no idea how this affects families. She probably couldn't define what autism is if she tried. Yet, she decided to attack people like my son. People she has never met and probably doesn't want to. People who she instantly thinks, without even meeting them, that they are going to rip off the system. She attacks it under the veil of "Why do I have to pay for something I don't need?"
I have paid my taxes for a war in Iraq that I thought was foolish, defense systems that didn't work (the Sergeant York comes to mind) and a bill to help the pharmaceutical industry that didn't lower my drug costs. It comes with the territory. The government also has created things like the Internet, which has helped me quite well, thank you very much.
She has no idea how this bill can help her keep from paying for other things in the future. She probably doesn't want to know. One thing she seems to have a problem with is grasping reality.
Autism therapy is preventative. If we get to these kids in the first two
years their chances of being mainstreamed into society increase dramatically. In the old days, folks like this would often be institutionalized. Would you rather have them become tax paying citizens or have them live off of whatever the federal, state and local government can give them?
It's like that old Fram oil filter commercial. You can pay me now.....