Episode 5: The love of money

• Doing Nothing is Not an Option (Feb 15, Sheryl Young & Lauren Potter, Huffington Post)
• Organizations advocating for individuals with disabilities have launched campaigns to end the use of "the r-word" and to "disable bullying."  These campaigns focus on spreading tolerance through the mindful understanding of the experience of individuals with disabilities.  
• Connotation vs. denotation: how do we change the connotation of a word?  Using it as a symbol of power.
• High-minded ideals of the politically correct use of language aside, what's being done about the real work of service delivery?  
• Families tell lawmakers human services programs are crucial (Feb. 15, Sylvia Fagin, VTdigger.org)
• State budgets are falling to pieces, but real advocacy groups are standing strong and asserting that parents, schools, and the general public need professional services for children with disabilities in order to thrive.  
• These advocates didn't cry over the use of the r-word, they argued that cutting $1.4 million in Vermont's mental health programs and $3.2 million in developmental disability services was unconscionable and self-sabotage on the state level.  These cuts were proposed by Gov. Peter Shumlin. 
• Ark. House panel endorses bill for autism coverage (Feb 15, AP, cnbc) 
• Arkansas joins the growing ranks of states that are passing bills to mandate the coverage of autism services.  Why, while states are tightening their belts, are they also passing bills mandating that insurance companies compensate for their budgetary failures?
• There's a shift happening and this shift is one of regulation.  Instead of municipalities exerting direct control over service provision, they will soon be simply auditors of a privately run health-care industry.  Is this a good thing?  
• We'll be paying taxes for auditors to audit private industries and for lawmakers to side-step their responsibilities.  Then, the private industries that are propped up by our tax dollars will charge us higher premiums to access necessary services.  This seems a lot like double billing.
• Support for kids with autism drops off after high school (Feb 15, Steven Carter, examiner.com)
• Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine reports that nearly 40% of young adults with ASD get no medical, mental health, or case management services.
• This is especially true for people with low incomes who rely on government intervention and advocacy, which is being traded in for kickbacks by insurance companies.
• blacks are more than three times less likely to receive services than whites
• The mandates in service provision are focusing on early intervention services because those have been proven to be most effective and cost-saving in the long term.  But, what about those who still need services in late adolescence and adulthood?  There is a definite need for care.
• 41-year-old virgin admits guilt
• a Dr. who practices general medicine in the Australia pleaded guilty of using a postal service to circulate child pornography and for downloading it from the web.
• This highly intelligent man was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and his lawyer is claiming that his diagnosis indicates that he is not able to make the appropriate moral judgement that such a behavior is abhorrent.  
• If this individual was American and able to receive counseling from a counselor with specialized knowledge of autism spectrum disorders, then he may have been able to recognized the error of his ways
• We talked about the moral judgement of individuals with autism in a previous episode; this is an extreme illustration of the way in which skewed impulses and strict, non-abstract, moral decision-making can express itself in an individual with ASD.
• A counselor may have been able to help this man develop a relationship with an adult man or woman who could consent to sex, rather than a child who cannot. 
• this may be idealistic thinking, but not outside the realm of possibility.  
• without services, however, these adults with developmental disabilities, however intelligent, are left to struggle with issues without any specialized supports in place.
• Is this really a moral lapse caused by a developmental disability or just an excuse?  If this Dr. wanted companionship and sex, a knowledgeable counselor could have uprooted the obstacles keeping him from trying to get laid with an adult.
• Our children deserve better than inhibitory premiums, exploitative taxes, and a service-delivery system less interested in helping people than gaining the convoluted system that underwrites their checks.