A mandate to guarantee insurance coverage of young children with autism unanimously passed the Georgia Senate on Tuesday.
House Bill 429 is the result of a compromise that will likely carry it to final passage once the House reviews the rewritten bill. It comes after an announcement last week of an agreement between House Insurance Chairman Richard Smith, R-Columbus, and Senate Insurance and Labor Chairman Charlie Bethel, R-Dalton, on an issue that has languished for years at the Capitol — mostly over concerns it hurts small businesses.
The legislation in a nutshell: Insurers could not exclude coverage for children with autism 6 years and younger; annual payouts would be limited to $30,000; and businesses with 10 or fewer employees would be exempt. Insurers would be exempt from having to cover autism if they could verify it would raise all premiums by more than 1 percent.
The legislation would not apply to large companies that self-insure employees’ coverage.
The deal has cheered hundreds of advocates who have spent at least six years pushing for autism coverage, many of them inspired by a young Georgia girl named Ava Bullard for whom the Senate nicknamed its bill as “Ava’s Law.” Ava, now 10, began applied behavioral therapy for autism at age 3 and now functions well. On Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle welcomed Ava in the Senate chamber for the vote, as senators cheered her appearance.
The Senate has wanted the autism coverage but until now has been stymied by the House — Smith at one point last week called it “bad policy” and said he didn’t think it would help enough children because it cut off coverage for those 7 and older.
Smith, however, has now announced he will pursue legislation next year to let voters decide whether to levy a new fractional state sales tax to provide treatment for all children — birth through age 18 — with autism-related disorders.
Bethel, in turn, has pledged support to get that measure passed and to voters by the November 2016 ballot. He also agreed to put a “sunset” clause in the Senate legislation that would repeal the smaller mandate if voters approve the broader coverage proposed by Smith: a constitutional amendment to create a two-tenths of 1 percent sales tax.
The CDC says about one out of 68 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder.
HB 429 originally just included a measure dealing with end-of-life insurance coverage for terminal patients. That section remains in the bill, and is why the overall changes to the bill need to be reviewed again by the House.
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