Post 4: The Economics of Vaccination

The costs of autism are tremendous. Not only does the family have to sacrifice much of their time, to accommodate to the special needs of the child, they also have to spend an enormous amount of money to treat the disorder. It's estimated that each family of an autistic child will spend almost three and a half million dollars over the course of their lifetime. With the price of healthcare constantly on the rise, these family's are financially strained, not to mention the emotional burden. Here is a link to an article in the New York Times on January 23, of this year, which talks about the costs of autism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/health/23patient.html

In the article, a man by the name of Jeff Sell has a set of twin boys with autism. When his twin sons were born 13 years ago, Mr. Sell had many worries about his sons, but one of the main problems he said, was how he was going to be able to pay for all of this. Many health insurance policies don't cover autism treatment, leaving the family's with enormous healthcare bills. The costs of treatment, should be covered by all policies, in my opinion. To leave a normal family to foot the bill for the extremely high costs of the treatment of autism, is basically asking them to file for bankruptcy. With the rise of healthcare, these family's of the autistic are constantly being squezzed for everything they have leaving them broke and not able to care for the rest of the family. Hopefully with the new obama care plan, these family's might see some financial relief.

Autism trends, treatments and therapies routinely make headlines. Often overlooked, though, is the financial burden for many families with autistic children.

Treatment is extremely expensive. Direct medical and nonmedical costs can add up to as much as $72,000 a year for someone with an extreme case of the disorder, and even $67,000 a year for those on the lower end of the spectrum, according to a study from the Harvard School of Public Health.

That figure includes medical costs like doctor visits, prescriptions and occupational and speech therapy, as well as expenses for things like special education, camps and child care, said Michael Ganz, the author of the study, who is now a health care consultant.

“It can cost $3.2 million to take care of an autistic person over the course of his or her lifetime,” the study said.

More families are grappling with the disorder than ever before. One of every 110 8-year-old children in the United States has been diagnosed with autism — and one of every 70 boys, according to the latest survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released last fall. That is up from one in 150 children in a comparable report released in 2007.

“The numbers are just amazing,” said Pat Kemp, executive vice president of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, “Unless we attack this like a national health crisis, we’re going to have a huge economic crisis on our hands.”

Certainly families feel the financial strain. Many health insurance policies do not cover autism treatments, while those that do often have severe limits. And there is very little government or private financial assistance available.