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Getting Personal Over Autism
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But policymakers will have "a tough decision to make," he added, given the bill's likely effect on premiums.
"There are going to be impacts on the folks that buy benefits," Gray said. "Insurers will pass those costs on to people who have coverage."
Gray said that many small-business owners already have been dropping employee health coverage because of high costs. The number of small businesses offering coverage went from 69 percent in 2000 to 60 percent in 2005, and the cost of health insurance premiums increased by 6.1 percent last year, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Casandra Oldham and her husband, Bill, said the illness affecting two of their three children -- their oldest son, Tristan, is 6 -- has cost them their savings, their social lives and any sense of normalcy.
Many families with autistic children take out second mortgages. But the Oldhams, who bought their house two years ago -- before Garath's autism was diagnosed and Korlan was born -- said they owe more on their home than it is worth.
After the diagnoses for both boys, "we borrowed $20,000 from my mom and have turned to the community for help," Casandra Oldham said. "Otherwise, I don't know what we would do."
She is a fitness instructor, and the Oldhams organized a series of exercise classes in May as a fundraiser for Korlan's therapy.
In addition to the compromises they make on therapy services, they have to set financial limits on the medicine they give the boys, Oldham said.
"The cost is just too high," she said. "The calculation was $1,180 for both boys together last month. It is sometimes more, sometimes less, but we ask the doctors to try to keep it to $1,000 for both."
Other parents of autistic children tell similar stories of having to make agonizing financial choices. Loudoun County resident Cindy Davis said she has watched her autistic son improve with the help of experimental -- and expensive -- treatments.
"My son couldn't talk two years ago; he is almost mainstream now," she said in her comments at the autism summit.
"I know if I could afford everything, my babies would get better," Oldham said.
