Imagine that!
Republicans siding with the insurance companies rather than sick kids.
How did Cynthia Davis vote?
Oh, we’ll never know.

Autism is a good motivator.

Autism is the latest “catch all” diagnosis. If doctors/educators don’t know what it is that is afflicting a child, they call it autism. Look at the rate of kids being diagnosed as autistic. No insurance company nor taxpayer can afford to pick up the tab for this one! Sorry parents. You’re going to have to step up to the plate on this one.

Sorry, Sid. You’re an idiot. You try raising a child that is afraid of food and unable to communicate what he wants/needs and get back to me on how you feel about an autism diagnosis. Fortunately, the state of Missouri is among the nation’s leaders on support for families with special needs children. I have no idea what this bill is about, but I do know that we have been able to receive a wealth of services for my son without paying much out of pocket. As a taxpayer, it is nice to see that my state is stepping up to the plate and I’m seeing benefit from my tax dollars.

I’ll side with Sid on this one. 90% of ‘autistic’ kids aren’t autistic. If every kid reacted to everything exactly the same, it would be a boring life. That’s why everyone is different. Doesn’t mean they’re autistic, it just means they’re kids and they’re adapting to live and environmental variables differently.

Based on personal experience with mental illness I was relieved when my child was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, if it was autism we would have never been able to pay the bills, and we have dual insurance. I gurantee if one of these people had a child that was autistic or was another type of mental illness consumer they would change their tune. I voted for Cynthia Davis and I am watching her and everyone else who has a chance to do the right thing.

Sid and Kaos77 are spoken like true morons who have no idea what it is like to have a special needs child. Once again appranelty its easier for ignorant people to wrap their small minds around a child in a wheel chair than one with mental illness.

I understand parent’s concern’s regarding their children when they are afflicted with certain conditions and illnesses. But I do not think the government has the right to dictate. Nor, as a taxpayer, should I be burdened with other people’s children’s cost for care. I work 50 hours a week spent 85,000 for my education, worked full time and went to school full time for 7 years year round with 800 a month in school loan payments. I don’t have anymore to give. My father had alzheimers for 9 years before he died and the government did not do sh*t for me to help him out. And medicare was a joke as well as his supplemental insurance. The only option they gave us was to put him some sh*tty nursing home medicare bed.

“90% of autistic kids are not autistic”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Your ignorance is laughable. Stick to commenting on things you have the slightest idea about. This is obviously not one of them.

It would seem that treating kids in the early stages of a disease, such as autism, would be more beneficial to society than to allow the illness to exacerbate to the point where adolescent or adult treatment would be far more costly, not to mention the social problems that untreated mental illness causes until treatment is administered.

This would also apply to physical ailments that left untreated create huge medical costs further down the road not just for the parents, but all of us.

When it comes to mental and physical health we are all in this together. We all pay for our negligence through higher insurance costs or taxes. Better for the patient and the rest of us to receive an early diagnosis and begin treatment than to wait.

The insurance companies can provide coverage for treatment at the earliest possible time or our school systems can be burden with growing special education costs because children weren’t able to get therapies prior to school age at the time they would help the most.

As a parent of a special needs child who’s MULTIPLE diagnosis mimic autism in many ways, I have been there. We had to CHOOSE between getting additional therapy and more help for one child or financial security for my other child and the family as a whole. We could not afford the extra 2 hours of speech therapy a week or the extra two hours of occupational therapy each week at a cost of $100 per hour for each and NO insurance coverage for it. For those that care, that is $400.00 a week at a yearly cost of over $20,000 NONE covered by insurance (which insurance would have cost about $35 to the isurance company per hour for a total of $7,280).

That doesn’t even begin to account the costs for a moderately delayed child. ABA is at least 20-25k a year, then you will have speech, ot, and maybe pt on top of that.