Medicaid Fund: A Call to Action

Note: In light of recent legislation in Arkansas, threatening to de-fund therapy services for children with special needs, please feel free to cut and paste any or all of this post. Please call, email, or write your senator in SUPPORT Arkansas Medicaid funding, which provides so many of these services for children of Arkansas. Arkansas Senators’ Contact Information, Online Petition

Dear Mr./Ms. Politician,
(Particularly those of you who represent my home state of Arkansas)

I am a pediatric occupational therapist who has worked primarily with children on the Autism Spectrum for over 12 years. In this span of time, I have worked with countless patients and their families. I can cite dozens of “success stories” that demonstrate the importance of early intervention…how time and time again, early intervention has molded a child from a screaming, non-verbal two-year-old into a delightful, successful, sometimes fantastically quirky, kindergartener.

However, I will not give you individual success stories (though they are numerous and awe-inspiring). In this long, drawn-out election season, I too, have grown weary of the individual hardship/success story of someone far away, in another state/town, that doesn’t affect me. Therefore, I will spare you the flowery special-interest stories.

Mr./Ms. Politician, please let me give you the facts. Just some hard numbers on how the economics of Autism affect you. Yes, you. You, the individual politician. You and your personal family. You and the tax-payers who you represent. These current numbers support what I have observed with my own eyes time and time again on a much smaller scale. I have often argued with my friends at the dinner table, that spending tax dollars NOW on early intervention services reduces the level of special services required over 13 years, once the child enters the public school system. I have argued that spending dollars on early intervention services can actually mold individuals from requiring a lifetime of disability services, to creating an individual who is actually a tax payer.  So once again, let me give me the financial facts on how the economics of Autism affect all of us.

FACTS:

• The lifetime cost for an individual on the Autism Spectrum averages $2.4 million when an intellectual disability is involved, and $1.4 million when an intellectual disability is not present. (Autism Speaks)
• The bulk of childhood costs for Autism are for special education and for lost parental income. During adulthood, the highest costs relate to residential care and lack of employment. (Autism Speaks)
• A study in 2013 in Washington state found that, though costly, early coaching paid for itself within eight years by reducing the need for extra help in school. (Economist)
• A study published in 1998 in Behavioral Interventions found that if children receive “early intensive behavioral interventions” from 2 years of age until they start kindergarten, the cost savings range from $187,000 to $203,000 per child for the ages of 3-22 years.
• “Well-designed early childhood interventions have been found to generate a return to society ranging from $1.80 to $17.07 for each dollar spent on the program.” – when looking at children with  socioeconomic hardships and/or developmental delays. (RAND Corporation, 2005)

Please, Mr./Ms. Politician. Don’t take my word for it. Don’t even rely on what is “the right thing to do.” Simply think of the cold, hard cash, the simple dollars and cents. Think of balanced budgets. And then, please, do what is financially (and morally) in the best interest of your own family and the families of your constituents. Continue to fund Medicaid. Continue to fund early intervention services. It only makes “cents.”

Thank you,
Melissa R. Foster, OTR/L
Occupational Therapist, Children’s Therapy TEAM
Mother of 2 wonderful children
Tax-payer
Lover of children with Autism

Resources:
Beautiful Minds: Wasted. (April 16, 2016). The Economist. Retrieved from www.economist.com/news/leaders/21696944-how-not-squander-potential-autistic-people-beautiful-minds-wasted/fb/te/bl/ed/beautifulmindswasted

DeMillo, A., What you need to know about Arkansas Works. (April 3, 2016). Associated Press, KTHV. Retrieved from http://www.thv11.com/news/health/what-you-need-to-know-about-arkansas-works/117809310

Jacobson, J.W., Mulick, J.A., Green, G., Cost-Benefit Estimates for Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention for Young Children with Autism – General Model and Single State Case. (1998). Behavioral Interventions. 13, 201-226.

Karoly, L.A., Kilburn, M.R., Cannon, J.S., Proven Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions. (2005). RAND Corporation. Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9145.html

Lifetime Costs of Autism. (June 9, 2014). Autism Speaks. Retrieved from www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/lifetime-costs-autism-average-millions