Speak Up for Autism Votes in Ohio

My friend Jon Brooks, who is the par­ent of an autis­tic child, an autism reform advo­cate, and who founded and helps to run Roads to Recov­ery — a par­ent founded, 501 © (3) non profit orga­ni­za­tion serv­ing fam­i­lies in the greater Day­ton area who face autism spec­trum dis­or­ders — recently sent me a link to the site Autism Votes.  Autism Votes is the polit­i­cal arm of the group Autism Speaks.  The orga­ni­za­tion is cur­rently work­ing to gain pas­sage of Ohio House Bill 8.  This bill would pro­vide major autism insur­ance reform to the State of Ohio, a state where pri­vate health insur­ance com­pa­nies are not required to cover treat­ment of autism spec­trum dis­or­ders.  With Autism affect­ing so many fam­i­lies, and early treat­ment so crit­i­cal in out­come, this bill is very important.

Here is text from the Autism Votes site that fur­ther explains the bill:

HB 8 Heads to House Floor for Vote Soon!

The effort to bring mean­ing­ful autism insur­ance reform to Ohio continues!

House Bill 8, which would require pri­vate health insur­ance com­pa­nies to pro­vide cov­er­age for the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of autism spec­trum dis­or­der, will be head­ing to the House Floor for a vote very soon. We need the sup­port of every leg­is­la­tor in the House to ensure the suc­cess of this crit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion. A strong, clear mes­sage must be heard by all House Rep­re­sen­ta­tives: Autism is treat­able. Insur­ance should cover treatment.

Please con­tact your rep­re­sen­ta­tive and ask them to vote “YES” on HB 8 when it comes to the House floor. You can send them an e-mail and per­son­al­ize your let­ter through the AutismVotes.org web­site HERE! Tell your Rep­re­sen­ta­tive that you are a con­stituent, that this leg­is­la­tion means a great deal to your fam­ily, and that you expect their support.

The link above takes you to a web based form that takes less than one minute to com­plete.  Doing so will let your rep­re­sen­ta­tive know that you sup­port this bill, and hope­fully move this closer to becom­ing law.  Make your voice heard.  I encour­age you to please take a minute and help change life for fam­i­lies across Ohio.  Your opin­ion mat­ters, and it could not be eas­ier to express your support.