Fw: Pennsylvania HB 1150 Update - DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

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From: Jim Bouder <jimbouder@...>

Subject: Pennsylvania HB 1150 Update - DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

jimbouder@...

Date: Friday, June 27, 2008, 10:13 PM

INFORMATION ALERT

Pennsylvania Autism Insurance Bill

Dear Friends:

There has been a lot of information circulated in the last several days about

the autism insurance bill now pending in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. 

Unfortunately, much of that information is simply inaccurate and confusing.

Here is the straight story.  When our champion in the General Assembly, Speaker

Dennis O'Brien, introduced HB 1150 in the House of Representatives last year, it

was a good bill that promised to help our community.  That is no surprise given

Denny's unfailing support for Pennsylvanians with autism and their families for

decades.

But, in recent weeks, the insurance industry, its lobbyists and its allies in

the legislature have so butchered the bill that it barely resembles the bill

Denny introduced more than a year ago.  It is now a bill mostly written by

insurance lobbyists to be sure that health insurers will have every opportunity

to deny coverage for services our people desperately need. 

In other words, the bill passed by the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee

chaired by Sen. Don White not only will not help the autism community, it will

likely harm it.

You may have received information from Autism Speaks suggesting that you should

support the bill in its current form.  You should consider the source.  Autism

Speaks sent people into Pennsylvania with the promise that they would support

Denny O'Brien and his efforts to enact a true and meaningful autism insurance

bill.  But now that the bill has been mutilated to the point at which Denny

himself believes it would be harmful to our community, Autism Speaks is still

pushing for its passage.  Why?  Perhaps because Autism Speaks is more interested

in checking off a box on the list of states in which it is trying to have autism

insurance legislation enacted.  Perhaps because Autism Speaks is more interested

in checking off that box than in being truly certain that the bill would be good

for persons with autism and their families.

Perhaps because Autism Speaks and its lobbyists will now move on from

Pennsylvania and will not have to contend with the harm the current version of

the bill will likely cause.

It is time that the Pennsylvania autism community seize control of its own

future and not be lead by an organization from outside our state.  A group with

its own agenda.  A group that has not shared our history.  And a group that will

not share our future.  We have our own leader in the General Assembly, a man who

has been in the trenches with us for years and who has devoted his career to our

community.  Denny O'Brien has earned our trust.  And no group of carpetbaggers

from outside our state should make us doubt Denny's judgment.  Denny studied the

issue.  He introduced the bill.  He pushed it along.  And, now, he's watched

what the insurance lobbyists and their allies in the General Assembly have done

to it.  Denny does not want the current version of his bill to become law

because he knows it would likely harm the very people it was meant to help.

Please call or e-mail your state senator and your state representative.  You can

find their phone numbers and e-mail addresses by going to

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/ and typing your ZIP code into the box at the top,

right side of the page.  Tell your legislators that they must not support Sen.

White's version of the autism insurance bill.  Tell them that the only version

of the bill they should support is one endorsed by Speaker Dennis O'Brien.

When information is sent to you, consider the source, and do not allow yourself

to be lead by those from outside Pennsylvania who have their own agendas. 

Jim Bouder