I don't know because I'm in the US, but does universal healthcare in other countries cover autism-related therapies and care such as ABA, occupational and speech at the rates recommend by docs (our docs recommended 20+ hours/week - or roughly the cost of $100k/year)? And is that factored into the equation?
I haven't seen the official modeling, just assumptions around the internet. But back of the napkin math suggests that appropriate autism care alone could be quite high: 1/36 of the 341,500,000 American residents have autism. Assuming 15% need care in the range of $100k, would be somewhere around $138b/year for just autism care. Does that seem in line with what you are thinking? Either way, are you able to point me to some of the modeling you have found? I'd love to learn more about how it tactically works.
Where’s your math coming from? There’s a ton of folks on the spectrum that don’t need assistance at all.
I just estimated that 15% need care. So that would leave a huge number that don't - you are right.
EDIT: A quick Internet search says that 82% of autistic adults want or get support, and only 16% are fully employed. 🤷
"Want to get support" is not the same as "need 20h of a specialists time each week"
You are right, which is why I used 15%, instead of 82%.
But what do you base those 15% on? Might as well be 1%, or even lower. In the end its just your own intuition, based on nothing. Hell, if they were capable of answering that survey, I don't think they'd need that much support.
Nothing, back of the napkin math for discussion purposes based on the 2 diagnosisea and doc recommendations we've gotten. Totally can adjust if you have a more accurate number.
Fyi ABA is considered highly unethical in the autism community.
Fair, take that piece out of the equation. Our docs still advised us on 20+ hours of therapy, all of which is costly.
I’m autistic and I don’t think I need twenty hours of therapy per week.
That sounds excessive to me.
Probably would be - age plays into it as well. My kids are pretty impacted - minimal language, safety issues, etc. I suspect it can vary widely.
I didn’t speak until I was 4 years old. Safety issues were handled by teaching me to swim, light campfires and bonfires and fireplace
fires, use power tools, a little firearm safety, and how to interact with horses without getting kicked.
Mom knew I was a special kid, so she pushed me out the door a lot. Like she knew I was extremely different. I distinctly remember her and I sitting at the kitchen table, and her saying that if my face didn’t show emotion spontaneously I was just going to have to fake it to fit in because the world wasn’t going to work if I kept my wooden face.
I had a ridiculous temper. I fought (as in physically fought) my friends often. It always led to cathartic release and an improvement of our bond, which boy fights predictably do.
Sometimes I feel extremely fortunate to have grown up in the 1980s and not today. The way autistic kids are coddled today can be utterly inhumane. It instills in them a self image as a broken person who cannot fit in. That self image is far and away more damaging than autism.
Now, I know some people are unable to vocalize other than incoherent groaning at the age of twenty. I wasn’t that bad.
But among the kids who were enrolled in school, able to form sentences, I had it pretty bad and my little shithole town just treated me as “one of them weird kids”, and it worked out. Our cultures have had autistic people since the dawn of time; the expertise coming out of labs isn’t the only source of wisdom on how to help them lead good lives.
Your first mistake is to use US prices as if that's what the care actually costs.
20+ hours of anything is costly if you are paying the therapists appropriately. The issue is that their work is 1:1 and doesn't scale easily.
And?
Doesn't change the fact that US prices are orders of magnitude out of proportion. You simply can't use it as a yardstick.
Now, if you're looking at the plain amount of material, manufacturing, infrastructure, and labour required, then you're making sense.
But it seems you're making the argument that too many people cost more to care for than they are "worth" in terms of economics, and would be too great a burden on the productivity of the healthy for a universal healthcare system to function.
But that's not even close to true. Universal healthcare is essentially an attempt at triage on national scale. To apply resources where they do the most good.
In comparison, commercial market healthcare is just less efficient across the board. A universal system is able to provide more care for more people at less cost, even if it isn't able to do so for everyone in every situation.
No-one is claiming universal healthcare systems save everyone and care for every ailment, every time. The argument is that it's simply the smarter way to use the resources a country has.
So, you totally hit the nail on the head. I couldn't agree more: It is about maximizing resources for overall good. It is just that some groups may not see a qualitative difference in care.
I don't know because I'm in the US, but does universal healthcare in other countries cover autism-related therapies and care such as ABA, occupational and speech at the rates recommend by docs (our docs recommended 20+ hours/week - or roughly the cost of $100k/year)? And is that factored into the equation?
I haven't seen the official modeling, just assumptions around the internet. But back of the napkin math suggests that appropriate autism care alone could be quite high: 1/36 of the 341,500,000 American residents have autism. Assuming 15% need care in the range of $100k, would be somewhere around $138b/year for just autism care. Does that seem in line with what you are thinking? Either way, are you able to point me to some of the modeling you have found? I'd love to learn more about how it tactically works.
Where’s your math coming from? There’s a ton of folks on the spectrum that don’t need assistance at all.
I just estimated that 15% need care. So that would leave a huge number that don't - you are right.
EDIT: A quick Internet search says that 82% of autistic adults want or get support, and only 16% are fully employed. 🤷
"Want to get support" is not the same as "need 20h of a specialists time each week"
You are right, which is why I used 15%, instead of 82%.
But what do you base those 15% on? Might as well be 1%, or even lower. In the end its just your own intuition, based on nothing. Hell, if they were capable of answering that survey, I don't think they'd need that much support.
Nothing, back of the napkin math for discussion purposes based on the 2 diagnosisea and doc recommendations we've gotten. Totally can adjust if you have a more accurate number.
Fyi ABA is considered highly unethical in the autism community.
Fair, take that piece out of the equation. Our docs still advised us on 20+ hours of therapy, all of which is costly.
I’m autistic and I don’t think I need twenty hours of therapy per week.
That sounds excessive to me.
Probably would be - age plays into it as well. My kids are pretty impacted - minimal language, safety issues, etc. I suspect it can vary widely.
I didn’t speak until I was 4 years old. Safety issues were handled by teaching me to swim, light campfires and bonfires and fireplace fires, use power tools, a little firearm safety, and how to interact with horses without getting kicked.
Mom knew I was a special kid, so she pushed me out the door a lot. Like she knew I was extremely different. I distinctly remember her and I sitting at the kitchen table, and her saying that if my face didn’t show emotion spontaneously I was just going to have to fake it to fit in because the world wasn’t going to work if I kept my wooden face.
I had a ridiculous temper. I fought (as in physically fought) my friends often. It always led to cathartic release and an improvement of our bond, which boy fights predictably do.
Sometimes I feel extremely fortunate to have grown up in the 1980s and not today. The way autistic kids are coddled today can be utterly inhumane. It instills in them a self image as a broken person who cannot fit in. That self image is far and away more damaging than autism.
Now, I know some people are unable to vocalize other than incoherent groaning at the age of twenty. I wasn’t that bad.
But among the kids who were enrolled in school, able to form sentences, I had it pretty bad and my little shithole town just treated me as “one of them weird kids”, and it worked out. Our cultures have had autistic people since the dawn of time; the expertise coming out of labs isn’t the only source of wisdom on how to help them lead good lives.
Your first mistake is to use US prices as if that's what the care actually costs.
20+ hours of anything is costly if you are paying the therapists appropriately. The issue is that their work is 1:1 and doesn't scale easily.
And?
Doesn't change the fact that US prices are orders of magnitude out of proportion. You simply can't use it as a yardstick.
Now, if you're looking at the plain amount of material, manufacturing, infrastructure, and labour required, then you're making sense.
But it seems you're making the argument that too many people cost more to care for than they are "worth" in terms of economics, and would be too great a burden on the productivity of the healthy for a universal healthcare system to function.
But that's not even close to true. Universal healthcare is essentially an attempt at triage on national scale. To apply resources where they do the most good.
In comparison, commercial market healthcare is just less efficient across the board. A universal system is able to provide more care for more people at less cost, even if it isn't able to do so for everyone in every situation.
No-one is claiming universal healthcare systems save everyone and care for every ailment, every time. The argument is that it's simply the smarter way to use the resources a country has.
So, you totally hit the nail on the head. I couldn't agree more: It is about maximizing resources for overall good. It is just that some groups may not see a qualitative difference in care.