Emma Guitard, and her father J.D. play together on an iPad
Six-year-old Emma Guitard loves the color pink, the "Backyardigans" cartoon show, and her family.
"She is a sweetheart. She is so loving," says her mother, Christy Guitard. "She will give you a smile, a hug, and a kiss."
Guitard says her daughter is also a hard worker when it comes to her treatment.
Emma started showing signs of autism around the time she turned a year old, and doctors diagnosed her soon after. Non-verbal, and requiring help with many daily tasks, Guitard says Emma falls on the more severe end of the autism spectrum.
Doctors instructed Guitard to have her daughter in therapy at least 40 hours each week.
The family soon learned how much that would cost them.
"I was very shocked to find out that our insurance, which is a very good insurance plan through my husband's work, but it did not provide any coverage at all for autism," Guitard said.
She says her family is covered under Blue Cross, Blue Shield. She says the plan will allow Emma 30 combined speech and occupational therapy visits per year, far less than the doctor's order. That help comes only after the family meets its deductible, and they still face a co-pay.
"Of course we had to provide these things for our daughter, so it became a matter of, okay, what can we go without this month to able to afford even 10 hours of therapy? [That] was the absolute maximum we can afford, and that still was $2,000-$3,000 a month."
Read the original here:
Bill would require insurance to cover children with autism