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Originally Posted by AGDLynn
There was a nice article in the Atlanta paper today about Michigan now covering more autism costs for children.
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Maybe.
http://michiganradio.org/post/michig...ge-and-funding
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Originally Posted by article
The law will go into effect on October 1, but some questions have been raised about part of the funding for the mandated coverage.On the same day the Legislature approved the autism coverage bill, a state Senate committee stripped out funding in the state's proposed Medicaid budget for treating kids six and under with autism.
In his budget, Gov. Snyder put aside $34 million for this kind of coverage. That's now been brought down to $100 by the subcommittee.
State insurance regulations, like this one, do not apply to "self-funded employer insurance plans."
Those plans are overseen by the federal government.
Most large employers, such as GM, Home Depot, or DTE Energy, provide benefits through a "self-funded health care plan."
Those employers can choose to cover autism as part of their benefits on their own, but they're not compelled to do so by this new legislation.
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Reality is, if the Medicaid bill overrides the autism bill, then the only insurance this applies to at all is Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan because, as a non-profit, they are the only ones regulated by the state, besides Medicaid. As the article above points out, self insured companies don't have to do it. Matter of fact, all of those self insureds use BCBSM to process their claims and the members cards say BCBSM, but they are actually self funded and just pay BCBSM to process their claims for them.