The debate over whether insurance companies should be required to cover autism treatments for children is expected to continue next year. The issue stirred controversy and emotions in the waning hours of the Legislature's final session this year. But it stalled in the state Senate, which refused to act on it.
Republican state Representative and Lieutenant Governor-elect Brian Calley was among those who pushed for the reforms.
"Eventually the facts will catch up with the decision-makers and this will happen," he says. "I plan to advocate for this starting immediately next year and help education the incoming members, the new members, on this issue, and find a solution for the 15,000 families in Michigan that are struggling through this right now."
Calley, whose young daughter has autism, called the decision arbitrary and based on bad data: "based on 50-year-old intelligence that autism isn't treatable, that autism treatments are all experimental..."
Calley sent an impassioned plea to Senate Republican lawmakers to approve the autism measure before the end of the year.
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