Story Idea-Cost

This posting was submitted from a person who wanted to share information about the cost of autism. This item was emailed to this blog---AR



It is a very EXPENSIVE disease for which insurance will not cover many of those expenses. Yet, insurance will pay $100,000 for some acute disease a person has. That's discouraging. One Mom commented when her father (either in his 70s or 80s--sure still full of life, yet in the ending years of his life), had surgery for an acute condition and then complications, insurance paid over $100,000. Yet, insurance would not even consider a fraction of that kind of money for her child, (AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS LIFE). Insurance, as well as the government, has yet to act upon the fact that autism is CURABLE. But, it costs a large sum of money in the first 5-7 years of the child's life. I feel strongly that if the government does not get a handle on this soon it is going to affect society in general.

You think, what in the world are you talking about? Sure autism affects a lot of people, 1 out of 160 or less. But, in reality there are degrees of autism spectrum disorder. As one doctor at Washington University stated. Everyone has a blood pressure, but at what point do you state the person has high blood pressure. The same goes for being on the autism spectrum. Everyone is on the spectrum. But at a certain point the person's personality quirks are so great that it impairs their ability to exist in society and then they are considered having Asperger's, Autism, etc. But, you have a lot of people with ADD and ADHD, poor social skills, depression, anger issues, diabetes, immune disorders. And, all of these people are on the spectrum due to the chemical imbalances they were born with (just as kids with autism) and then the environment exacerbated. The cost to deal with these problems puts a drain on the economy due to loss of productivity, being unemployable, killing kids in high schools, government spending for special education, etc.

The medical community and the government need to realize that there is a way to deal with this issue. Cut down on the environmental assaults, provide the necessary funds to deal with the chemical imbalances early on in life and you will decrease the cost of immune disorders, depression, diabetes, IBS, etc. in later life.