Now it seems this thing will fly in the lame duck session.

Now mind you, I understand there is a difference between hangnails and autism, but I must argue at what point do we stop creating those additional costs through acts of government that makes the insurance itself unaffordable?  At what point do we stop and take a look at the MESS our state government has made by mandating types of coverage in the manner of a protected entity like BCBS anyhow?

I understand Calley's angst.  I get it.

But what about my hangnails? my neighbor's bad back? A friends depression? A mysterious affliction that we will discover next year?

Autism is indeed a larger problem than some of those things.  So much so that the Social Security administration has programs to cover it.  However, that itself has enough troubling parts and abuse to it, that it needs reconsideration as well.  But in mandating insurance carriers to carry certain policy types, its like telling a business which products to sell.  Well..  it IS TELLING A BUSINESS WHAT PRODUCTS TO SELL!

Like it or not.

Somehow I would have thought someone who was presenting themselves as a conservative, might not assume a role of central planner.  Government telling a business how to operate is not a conservative kind of thing.  And even if the business has a mechanism that allows them to recover the cost of such things (raising prices on everyone else) it hardly makes it moral.  For every Brian Calley with an autistic daughter, there may well be another legislator with his own story to add to our burden.

As KG One pointed out, this is not going to save taxpayers one thin dime anyhow. It is a money shift.  One that places the responsibility of the parents who must make decisions to one that again redistributes more burden among the rest of the population that pays for health coverage.

With all due respect Mr. Calley.  If your daughter has Autism, she needs YOU.  She needs your time AT HOME, with the loving attention you can afford to her like no specialist paid for with coerced funds.  But she does not need a mandate on the rest of us to pay higher premium on OUR plans.  The type of proposal you want is part of the grand 'let government fix all things that are bad' mentality.

We cannot afford to keep doing that.  We just plain cannot.

Perhaps some time away from politics that keeps you from her might well be a good thing.