Talley Challenges Tim Phillips, Trixie Averill on Autism Bill
By Guest Post | Friday, April 1st, 2011 | PolicyGuest Post by Lee Talley
I stand to issue a direct challenge to Tim Phillips, Trixie Averill, and Americans for Prosperity.
I write this on the eve of Autism Awareness Month after reading the latest email from my friends at AFP referring to the autism insurance reform bill that was amended by Governor McDonnell and sent back to the Virginia General Assembly for approval. While I praise Trixie for her efforts to speak against the bill while trying to show understanding of our struggle; I take great issue with anyone referring to this bill as “Obama-care lite”.
The Tea Party and AFP opposition to this bill as stated is based on the fact that it’s a “mandate”. I find this disturbing on many fronts. It makes me ask the following questions:
1. How can AFP have a lady who could benefit from several mandates (Pap Smears and God forbid reconstructive breast surgery in case of cancer are just two of them) attack this mandate? If one mandate is bad aren’t they all?
2. How can AFP advocate for liberty and freedom while allowing insurers who really aren’t free market businesses but regulated semi-monopolies to deny coverage for properly prescribed medical treatment solely based on diagnosis. Covering our grandparents for speech, occupational, and physical therapy doesn’t break the bank yet covering children (limited even to children between 2 and 6) does? Virginia Power has regulations to follow if they want to do business in Virginia. Why shouldn’t Anthem or other health insurers have the same? I don’t see people complaining that Virginia Power’s liberty is being infringed.
3. Why does AFP choose the prosperity of one group while directly affecting the prosperity of others? AFP feels that mandates violate the individual liberty of people and businesses. However, by advocating against this bill you are condemning a generation of Virginia’s future leaders to a future where they cannot achieve the “pursuit of happiness”.
4. Why does AFP not want to put a undue burden on small business but in not supporting this bill they will eventually put an extreme burden on the taxpayer as this children grow up and become wards of the state at considerable cost to all of us?
I could be angry and just blast Tim and Trixie as tools of big business and insensitive and other liberal hyperbole. I could just say conservatism is not for me anymore. I could just be angry and fume.
Well let me tell you what…
I challenge AFP and / or their designated representative either (Tim, Trixie, or you can even bring Ben Marchi out of retirement) to an open debate on the merits of mandated insurance coverage for Autism. Our Republican Party is at a crossroads. We have rejected the real socialism of the Obama healthcare bill yet we have taken on this cookie cutter philosophy of saying NO to everything. I became a Republican because I believe in this party’s conservative solutions based core. No is not a solution! I know there are smart folks at AFP whom I agree with 80% of the time. A friend you agree with 80% is still a friend in my book. It’s time to put forth the conservative solutions. Where is your plan, your ideas? I’m not talking about pie in the sky legislative wishful thinking like a la carte insurance coverage and buying coverage across state lines. What is your solution to the issue using the existing laws in Virginia and at the Federal level to solve this problem of covering our children and not placing an undue burden on small businesses?
Tim or Trixie please email me at alt11@cox.net and tell me when and where we can have this debate. I’ll meet anywhere in the state and you can even make the event a fundraiser (50/50 split with AFP and the Virginia Autism Project or Autism Speaks would be nice).
It would be great to have this debate in April as its Autism Awareness Month. I look forward to your correspondence and I know this is a great opportunity to grow the conservative message that much more via vigorous debate and examination.
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14 Responses to "Talley Challenges Tim Phillips, Trixie Averill on Autism Bill"
Why don’t you just say the real issue? Republicans/Tea Party like to pick and choose based on ideological issues instead of looking at the whole picture and trying to find a common ground/common sense solution.
Health care/coverage is a HUGE issue. What has happened? These people have decided that “Obamacare” is the greatest threat to the United States since the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the British in 1812. This is much much more dangerous that the Cold War or Vietnam.
The reality of the situation is that the health care proposal by President Obama was a step in the right direction (not perfect) but a hell of a lot better than what was there. Of course the opposition, instead of coming up with their own proposals or ideas, just started saying no, no, no. That was the end of their idea bank – “no.”
The problem is that it is okay to cover and mandate CHOICE inflicted ailments and procedures, such as those related to and for alcohol/tobacco/obesity, etc, but it isn’t for a diagnosis that is not a choice. My premiums go up every year b/c of more and more choice based coverage that is added to insurance policies. The cost to insure the children in this already stripped and bare boned bill is a fraction of what we pay to cover those who have choice-inflicted issues. It is unethical and for a party that strives to be moral and just, I find it a little hypocritical of those that voted against this “mandate”. I suppose it is okay to protect an unborn fetus, just not a child already born. Logic?
Perhaps it is time for the republican lapdogs to take a note from Speaker Howell and start voting on principle and not big government RINO party politics.
On a side note, I’m glad Americans for Prosperity launched their full-frontal assault on those republicans who voted for Medicare part D mandate…oh wait-nevermind. That would take guts.
I would like to hear some autism treatment solutions from the GOP as well. As an independent, the only current option for single issue autism voters is Democratic. For whatever reason that party sees the responsibility we have to future generations.
I really have a pretty conservative stance on this issue. I feel that investing our money now, when kids are young, will pave the way for more of these folks to lead successful lives and become taxpaying adults. I look at it as a logical extension of Santorum’s abortion/Social Security tax base argument. If these kids are helped, they become adults who contribute to the system. When looked at that way this money we spend now will result in a huge savings later.
Where the real conservative argument rests, in my mind, is that I pay for health insurance. A doctor, recognized by the commonwealth and authorized by the AMA, recommended this therapy. My insurance should pay for it. Period. I should get what I pay for. If that isn’t a conservative viewpoint I don’t know what is.
We need a socialized medical system where everyone pays into the system to cover the costs for those less fortunate. Everyone who puts a child into our earth faces the risk of giving birth to an autistic child or any number of other special needs children.
Those of us (like me) who were blessed with only very healthy children should not be willing to turn our backs on those who took their chances and were saddled (although some might disagree and say they were blessed0 with special needs children.
Our current medical system is designed so as to divorce the free market for having to pay for these special needs. As long as you and your children are perfectly healthy and paying perfect health care premiums you will have willing providers lining up to take your premiums. But become a burden on the profits and they will find an excuse to cut you off.
I am a troll? No, I have empathy. Although I was blessed with healthy children, I realize what my life would have been like had I not been so blessed. My heart bleeds for these type of parents.
Limited socialized medicine is the answer.
Ray,
There was a thread on this subject a month or two ago. I don’t know what your particular situation is but I assume you know the scientific community is divided on the Startling increase of reported autism cases that have been seen in the last 15 years. There is no consensus as to whether this rise is real or due to different categorization of cases. Autism as classically defined is a Very serious condition that severely incapacitates the afflicted. There are a number of milder related conditions which are Not autism as classically defined. Autism is not like say diabetes where there are some simple blood tests which can objectively categorize someone. Even the scientists have had trouble doing historical studies of how some psychologist/psychiatrist defined autism in patients in 1995 compared to 2011.
If someone has “real” autism I fully support their receiving assistance. But if a funding stream becomes available for one “disease” it is inevitable that more and more people will try to recategorize other less favored syndromes.
I think there needs to be an urgent analysis of these escalating autism cases by someone like NAS or NIH to see what is going on here. Let me clear – this exponential rise if Real is a national emergency. But if it’s a measurement issue then we need to focus on those who really need it. Otherwise we are going to blow the budget and dilute funding for the children and families who really need help.
TOR
Its not the Tea Party. The Public is opposed to Obamacare because it is unworkable as written and they sense it.
Lee, while I commend you in your fight for medical rights and treatment for children with Autism, I must say it’s sad you have to fight for it. It’s a no brainer that preventative health care, in this case paying for care that will increase long term benefits for possible self sustainability in the future, is the right thing to do. It’s too bad everything only comes down to money with some folks, especially insurance companies.
Lees just trying to be as big Govt as usual
Tim Phillips is a coward – you won’t hear from his ivory tower in Arlington. Trixie needs to resign because she looks like she is being used like a two-bit… well, you know. Since AFP is opposed to mandated insurance coverage, then next year I assume we will see legislation introduced by their like-minded idiots in the General Assembly to repeal all of the health care insurance mandates on the books in Virginia – PSAT testing for men in the prostate cancer age group, PAP smear coverage, no more requirements for at least one night in the hospital after giving birth, no more automatic coverage for diseases that – if you have them – makes you virtually incapable of getting insurance – and so many more. I suspect that if Tim Phillips were a middle income Virginian with an autistic child he might look differently on this legislation. But the truth is, he has gotten so rich off of the AFP SCAM that he doesn’t give a damn what your child or anyone else’s child is afflicted with!
I read this article and have to laugh, because the writer, a conservative, is firmly against insuring all Americans, and like most conservatives, only interested in his own, one of whom clearly, is autistic. ALL Americans should have access to affordable healthcare, not just me, or you, or your family or mine. Healthcare is a broader issue and Americans for Prosperity is fighting to protect the insurance companies from having to pay out claims for millions of people, not just YOUR child. If you agree with 80% of what they say, then you are no friend of mine. I would prefer a debate between Trixie and someone who supports healthcare reform for all Americans, not just your own, or my own. I have not one but two children on the autism spectrum. I believe no insurance company should be allowed to wantonly discriminate against ANY medically diagnosed disorder for any reason EVER. They are in the business of providing healthcare after we pay for their service, yet when we make a claim, they deny it; that’s just wrong. If I pay for a service, that business should have to pay my claims.
One concern in the above comments is lesser known/favored ailments would fall under the autism umbrella. These parents want to protect their sick or ailing children too I imagine,and as a mother of autistic children, I would welcome ANY uncovered sick child under my umbrella, rather than to allow them suffer or die because they didn’t have the disease du jour. There but for the grace of God that most people do not have special needs children, but anyone who wants to deny coverage to families who do, needs to do a little soul-searching. To refer to the complaints of the left over the behavior of the Republican party over healthcare and their total lack of answers or solutions and simply dismiss it as “liberal hyperbole,” begs the question, why does YOUR autistic child deserve treatment but the children and families of millions of other Americans do not? What makes YOU an arbiter of who deserves healthcare and who does not?
When polled actually, the majority of Americans either approve of the Healthcare Reform Act of 2009 or want it to go further to cover more people and to add a public option. Nice try, attempting to add all the disapproval of this law together into a neat right wing fringe package, to claim the law needs to be overturned entirely. Only 40% of Americans want the healthcare law repealed entirely, most of whom have not actually read the law and know little to nothing about it. I have little regard or patience for anyone who is satisfied with the healthcare system as it stands and I urge all to actually READ the law and stop trusting everything you read off Glenn Beck’s chalkboard.
Frankly, as a mother of two autistic sons myself, I feel zero empathy for anyone who thinks his child should be treated for autism while 40 million Americans have no access to healthcare at all. The “I. Me. Mine” mantra of the Republican party rings loudly and clearly to this reader in this piece. All our children deserve to be treated and have their claims paid out by insurance companies, not just mine, or yours, but everyone’s. And if they cannot stay in business, actually providing healthcare to their subscribers, then so be it, let them go out of business. I trust the government far more than I trust for-profit healthcare providers, who ironically call themselves providers as they refuse to provide healthcare.
4boymom, that’s why you’re a Democrat, and we aren’t.
Dear 4 boy Mom,
I urge you to read the writings of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Obama’s health care advisor) and even Tom Daschle and Donald Berwick. Long term serious debilitating diseases like (true)autism are not “cost effective” for the government to reimburse or treat aggressively. Your children will be a “cost item” and unlike today you will have no way to maneuver through the system without political connections. Even Obama admitted on national TV that in many such cases his team of advisers will say “just take the pain pill and go away.”
I also am very quizzical about your use of the term “autism spectrum”. Please read my earlier post.
Be thankful you live in the US and that Obamacare will be repealed.
Also please say hello to TornACL
Harvard did a study saying that the average adult with autism will cost taxpayers $3.2 million on average in lifetime care. Early intervention negates many of these cost, even for the most classically autistic. My son is one of these. He won’t be covered by this bill and we paid out of pocket for what we could afford, which was considerably less than what the doctor recommended. It made a difference in his level of function, he might be able to go out for supported employment as an adult, but his future likely would have been even better if he had more therapy. Instead of my premiums and copays helping my son, your tax dollars will support him for the rest of his life. Autistic generally have normal life spans.
And by the way, Virginia is currently trying to avoid a lawsuit from the Department of Justice for not providing adequate services (long waiting lists, too many forced into expensive institutions instead of less expensive community based services) for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism, and will likely be spending millions to make things right. I guess the AFP isn’t worried about this bill being passed along to the taxpayer either. As long as there is no mandate…
Val,
There has been analysis and there are studies. The rise in incidence is real and not due to changed diagnostic criteria. If your interested you might enjoy the study released by UC Davis. The abstract is free but the study costs money. However, you can find the study on the web if you look for it.
http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2009/01000/The_Rise_in_Autism_and_the_Role_of_Age_at.16.aspx
Ray,
I’m aware of the UC Davis study. Again I said there was no scientific Consensus at this time. By definition that means there are appropriately done studies supporting different conclusions. I strongly support more scientific attention to this to determine exactly what is going on. The answer is likely to be complex but hopefully we will end up with better more accurate diagnostic measures for this and related syndromes. I do agree that early intervention in true autism is to be preferred because neurologic development is still ongoing in the young child.
Your comment that single issue autism voters are banking exclusively on Dems may be right but they will be in for a rude shock if the Dems institute their beloved single payer system. As I mentioned above with 4boysMom people need to read what the Dems (Ezekiel Emanuel, Daschle etc) are actually saying about health care delivery for chronic diseases in the young and old. It will never be in one of their commercials. And debt ridden countries are not likely to have a great health care system.
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