Senator Darline Graham

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the congressional role in the issue.

Sara Luterman at The 19th:

Unlike her late brother Lindsey, whose political career spanned 33 years, Darline Graham has never run for or held elected office — until she was appointed to serve the remainder of the U.S. senator’s term this week. Instead, she has worked in vocational rehabilitation, publicly funded programs that help people with disabilities overcome barriers to employment.

Due to her lack of political experience, it is difficult to know what her priorities will be between now and January 2027, when Lindsey Graham’s term ends. But to former colleagues and the disability advocates who have worked with her, there is little doubt in Darline Graham’s capabilities. They describe the 62-year-old as a dedicated civil servant who is uninterested in the spotlight and deeply knowledgeable about issues facing the disability community. And they are optimistic she will bring that experience to Capitol Hill.

Terry Collins; Bella Carpentier, and Thao Nguyen at USA TODAY:

She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from the College of Charleston, a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling and holds certification as a public manager, according to a biography provided to The Greenville News, part of the USA TODAY Network.

For nearly seven years, she has served as a commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, where she focused on helping blind and low-vision people achieve employment, independence and economic self-sufficiency, the biography states.

Graham Nordone began her career as a certified optician, working directly with people on eye-care needs before moving into state government. She later held positions at Clemson University and with the state employment department before joining the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department.

During 12 years with the Vocational Rehabilitation Department, Graham Nordone served as the business services director and communications director, according to the biography. She currently serves on the South Carolina State Workforce Development Board and is president-elect of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind.

Vaccination Green Shoots

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.  A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

As of last week, there were 1,748 measles cases in 2026, more than in all of 2024.

At Bloomberg, Jessica Nix reports that measles outbreaks have persuaded some antivax parents to have second thoughts.

The health department in South Carolina saw a nearly 170% increase in MMR immunizations at free clinics in January from the year prior and is close to declaring its outbreak over. MMR vaccines jumped 15% in Texas last year before the state declared its outbreak over in August. Utah’s health department also has recorded a bump in immunizations since last summer, a hopeful sign for the country’s most active current outbreak.

...

The backslide in childhood immunization rates accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, helping to create the conditions for measles to come raging back. Some people simply skipped vaccinations for their kids because the lockdowns halted routine pediatrician visits. But rates also dropped as anti-vax influencers peddling distrust of science and misinformation linking the MMR to autism swayed more parents to opt out of the shots.

Heather Simpson, 35, used to be one of those influencers. She turned against immunizations after she started “absorbing the wrong things” online, including interviews with Kennedy. Later, she struggled to get doctors to diagnose her daughter’s sleep apnea, solidifying her anti-medical establishment views.

The influencer part happened by accident in 2019 when she decided to post her own takes on vaccines in a Facebook group of like-minded moms. Almost instantly, thousands of followers offered her community, which she said was lacking in her life. They also amplified her posts, including one of her dressed as the measles for Halloween that made national news.

Her opinions started to diverge during the pandemic, however, when she found it tough to rail against what she considered common-sense measures to protect others, such as masking. She started to second-guess the authority of anti-vax leaders on other health issues, too. As she began opening up online in 2021 about her changing perspective, her support system crumbled.


“We lost real life friends,” Simpson said. She suffered from panic attacks, worried that maybe her old community was right on vaccines. Doctors who patiently walked her through concerns — instead of throwing data at her — helped affirm her decision to start catching up on immunizations for her daughter.

Her experience led her to help create Back to the Vax, a small online support group for anti-vaxxers who are slowly unlearning what many of them have been told their whole lives.

Contagion

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.  A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

Lena H. Sun at WP:

In 16 weeks, South Carolina infections surpassed the case count over seven months in Texas, where an outbreak last year drove the country’s highest annual measles tally in 33 years.

“This is a milestone that we have reached in a relatively short period of time, very unfortunately,” South Carolina’s state epidemiologist, Linda Bell, recently told reporters in a briefing.

...

Unlike the rural swath of West Texas struck by measles nearly a year ago, Bell said South Carolina is susceptible to sustained transmission because of a dense, relatively under-vaccinated population.

South Carolina has already seeded cases across the country, including some in neighboring North Carolina, which has reported 15 cases. In Washington state, three members of a South Carolina family visited King and Snohomish counties while infectious, leading to three cases there.

Across the United States, more than 500 measles cases have been reported in January, primarily driven by South Carolina’s outbreak, compared with more than 2,000 in all of 2025. As a result, experts fear the vaccine-preventable virus has regained a foothold and will result in the United States losing its measles-free designation.

CNS:

Public health officials Saturday confirmed the new year's second measles case in Los Angeles County Saturday.

The infected patient arrived on Viva Aerobus Flight 518 -- an international flight -- at the Tom Bradley International Airport Terminal B, gate 201A at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday, according to county health officials.

The person may have exposed others to the measles virus at Terminal B between Monday at 10:45 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesday.

 

South Carolina Measles Outbreak

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio. A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa. He has now hijacked the CDC website -- and the CDC itself.

Stephanie Soucheray at CIDRAP

Today the South Carolina Department of Health (DPH) said the state’s measles outbreak has grown to 789 cases, almost 30 more than the West Texas outbreak that took place from January to August last year and resulted in the death of two school-aged children.

The South Carolina outbreak, which grew by 89 cases in the past four days, is now the largest measles outbreak the United States has faced in nearly three decades.

The outbreak’s epicenter is Spartanburg County, where the virus spread in a series of elementary and middle schools in October of last year. Those schools, many of them private, Christian academies, have largely unvaccinated student bodies. Holiday gatherings and travel accelerated the outbreak.

 Katherine J. Wu at The Atlantic:

[The] U.S. has been weathering a worsening measles situation for years now, as vaccination rates have ticked down and outbreaks have grown larger and more common. In the past year, the Trump administration has made it substantially more difficult for local public-health-response teams to address and contain outbreaks too. HHS reportedly delayed communications from the CDC to officials in West Texas and held back federal funds to fight the outbreak for two months. More recently, HHS pledged to send $1.4 million to address South Carolina’s outbreak, though it began months ago. (One recent analysis suggests that measles outbreaks of this scale can cost upwards of $10 million.) The administration has repeatedly downplayed the benefits of immunization, while exaggerating the importance of nutritional supplementation for combatting measles. Kennedy has also spent decades repeating disproved claims that vaccines such as the measles-mumps-rubella immunization can cause autism. (Hilliard wrote that Kennedy has consistently said that vaccination is the most effective way to prevent measles, but she also emphasized in her email that people should consult with health-care providers about whether vaccination is best for their family.)

Should immunity erode further—as experts watching the Trump administration’s actions expect it to—measles will find it even easier to move across the country, until epidemics bleed so thoroughly together that their links become irrefutable. Already, the nation’s leaders have made clear where the U.S. stands on measles: It is an acceptable norm.

Measles Update

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.  A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

He has now hijacked the CDC website -- and the CDC itself.

Erika Edwards at NBC:

The South Carolina measles outbreak is growing at an astounding speed.

“Over the last seven to nine days, we’ve had upwards of over 200 new cases. That’s doubled just in the last week,” Dr. Johnathon Elkes, an emergency medicine physician at Prisma Health in Greenville, South Carolina, said during a media briefing Friday. “We feel like we’re really kind of staring over the edge, knowing that this is about to get a lot worse.”

On Friday, the state’s health department said that 124 measles cases had been diagnosed since Tuesday, bringing the state’s total since the outbreak began last fall to 558.

A spokesperson for the South Carolina Health Department said in an email that “eight people, including adults and children, required hospitalization for complications of the disease since the start of the outbreak.” It was unclear how many people are currently hospitalized.

During the Friday briefing, Prisma Health pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Robin LaCroix estimated that 200 people are now “actively infected.”

Melanie Zanona and Brennan Leach at NBC:

President Donald Trump encouraged Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., to primary Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., for his U.S. Senate seat in a post on Truth Social Saturday evening.

"Should she decide to enter this Race, Julia Letlow has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, JULIA, RUN!!!" Trump wrote.

...

NBC News previously reported that the White House has assured Letlow that its support would be there if she chooses to jump into the race. But White House officials didn’t want to get involved too early in the primary for fear of alienating Cassidy, who chairs a key committee and has provided some pivotal votes for the GOP last year — including to confirm Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Cassidy voted to impeach Trump for "incitement of insurrection" and has also been critical of Kennedy. However, Cassidy has not brought Kennedy in for an oversight hearing before the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee since May, despite the secretary's promise to appear before the Committee "on a quarterly basis" if requested.

Cassidy invited Kennedy for a hearing to review changes at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September, but the Senator continues to tell NBC News that there is no date set for that hearing to take place.

USA About to Lose Measles Elimination Status

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.  A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

Polls show that many Americans either believe the myth or think it could be true.

Trump has spread this myth and withdrawn the US from the World Health Organization.

From the South Carolina Department of Public Health:

The South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) is reporting 15 new cases of measles in the state since Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases in South Carolina related to the Upstate outbreak to 126 and the total number reported to DPH this year to 129.

Thirteen of the new cases are from known household exposures, one was from a neighborhood contact and another was from an unknown source still being investigated.

Eduardo Medina and Nick Madigan at NYT:

The level of worry in Spartanburg, though, appears to be correlated with whether or not one believes in the general efficacy of vaccines, an “anti-vax” notion that has been spearheaded in part by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s health secretary.

In interviews on Friday, some residents dismissed the rise in measles as an overblown problem.

“It’s not really an outbreak,” said Tim Johnson, a native of Belarus who immigrated to the United States 10 years ago. “We have to be careful about what we do and who we’re with, but not everything is worth looking into.”

Claire Cameron at Scientific American:

South Carolina is the epicenter of what state officials call an “accelerating” measles outbreak. Hundreds of people are in quarantine, and the outbreak has sickened at least 111 individuals, most of whom—105—were not vaccinated against the disease. The rash of cases is merely the latest in a string of measles outbreaks across the U.S. this year. Each of these outbreaks has brought the country ever closer to losing its measles-free status after more than 25 years.

As of December 10, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 1,912 measles cases, most of which were linked to 47 outbreaks of the disease, this year. For comparison, 2024 saw just 16 outbreaks and 285 cases. At least two children have died of measles in the current outbreaks.

A growing decline in vaccination rates in communities across the country is driving these grim trends. Measles vaccines are generally given as part of the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot, two doses of which are 97 percent effective against the disease. The U.S. effectively eliminated measles in 2000 because enough people got the vaccine to suffocate the virus’s spread through the population.

 

South Carolina Measles

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.    Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.  A top antivaxxer is HHS Secretary RFK Jr. He is part of the "Disinformation Dozen." He helped cause a deadly 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.

Polls show that many Americans either believe the myth or think it could be true.

From CIDRAP:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today said the United States has 1,912 confirmed measles cases so far in 2025, an increase of 84 cases since last week and a bad sign as holiday gatherings, travel, and indoor activities is set to pick up in the final weeks of the year.

In January 2026, the United States is at risk of losing its measles elimination status because of ongoing transmission chains from a West Texas outbreak that began early last year and sickened roughly 800 people. The country first gained elimination status in 2000.

Eighty-eight percent of cases in the United States this year are outbreak-associated, and there have been 47 outbreaks recorded. Last year, 16 outbreaks were reported during 2024 and 69% of cases (198 of 285) were outbreak-associated.

Currently Utah, Arizona, and South Carolina are seeing large outbreaks that since Thanksgiving have pushed state totals well past 100 cases. Those outbreaks have been marked by exposures at schools and churches in communities with low vaccination levels.
Utah-Arizona outbreak grows to 254 cases

In South Carolina, 281 students at eight schools in the Upstate region are in quarantine. That state has 114 cases, 111 associated with the Upstate outbreak.

The most recent case in Utah was also in a school setting outside of Salt Lake City, but the highest activity is still in a southwestern region of the state that borders Arizona. The Utah-Arizona outbreak, which began in Colorado City, Arizona, and neighboring Hildale, Utah, now has 254 cases, and is the second largest US outbreak this year after West Texas.

Late yesterday, Arizona officials confirmed 21 new measles cases in the past week, raising the state total to 176. Of those cases, all but four are from Mohave County, home to Colorado City.

The CDC said that, among all confirmed measles cases, 92% of patients are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status. Three percent have had one dose of measles-containing vaccine, and 4% have had two doses. There have been three confirmed deaths from measles this year, and 11% of patients have required hospitalization, but 21% of those younger than five years have needed hospital care.

Police Training in South Carolina

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss interactions between police and autistic people.  When cops encounter autistic people, they may not respond in the same way as NT people, and things can get out of hand. Among other things, they may misinterpret autistic behavior as aggressive or defiant. Training could help.

Michaela Leggett at WHNS-TV reports on police training in Greenville County, South Carolina.

Antivax Testimony

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong. 

 Alexander Thompson at The Post and Courier:

A daylong hearing by a Republican panel of South Carolina state legislators about pandemic preparedness saw a parade of witnesses trumpet proven falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine while raising doubts about the long-refuted link between childhood vaccines and autism.

... 

The most lengthy testimony given Sept. 12 came from New York attorney Aaron Siri, who spoke for nearly 90 minutes. Siri criticized federal liability shield laws covering vaccine makers and raised doubts about the refuted link between autism and the pre-natal TDAP vaccine.

In May, he testified before the Arizona Senate. Jerold MacDonald-Evoy at the Arizona Mirror:

The most spurious accusations about vaccines came from Aaron Siri, an attorney who is most well known for his work with an organization called the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN. In his testimony, Siri mischaracterized vaccine research by leaving out key information about vaccine efficacy and safety.

“Vaccines were not given by God at Sinai, they’re just products,” Siri said during his testimony.

Siri tried to connect vaccines to autism by claiming that there were no studies conducted by federal health authorities that had fully refuted the claim that vaccines given in the first 6 months of life were not causing autism. But that ignores the ample research done by others into the supposed links between vaccines and autism more broadly: Multiple studies have found no connection between vaccines and autism. And a 2013 study published in The Journal of Pediatrics concluded that there was no link between autism and the vaccines given to children in the first two years of life.

The initial report that started the controversy around vaccines and autism was retracted and has been widely debunked in the 25 years since it was published.

Siri also said that the inactivated polio vaccine “does not in any way stop the infection and transmission of the virus.” He did not mention that the vaccine prevents the paralysis that polio causes, or that widespread adoption of the vaccine worked so well that polio was eliminated in the Americas by 1994, in 36 Western Pacific countries in 2000 and in Europe by 2002. India was declared polio-free in 2014.

ICAN has been on the frontlines of anti-vaccine misinformation and is led by Del Bigtree, a television and film producer who has become an anti-vaccine activist. ICAN was listed as one of the “key organisations” tied to the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s “The Disinformation Dozen”,” the anti-vaxxers who play leading roles in spreading digital misinformation about COVID vaccines.

Fighting Bans on Mask Mandates

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the day-to-day challenges facing autistic people and their families. Those challenges get far more intense during disasters.  And coronavirus is proving to be the biggest disaster of all. 

People with autism and other disabilities appear to be at higher risk from COVID.

 At USA Today, Alia Wong reports on mask mandate bans. She cites the example of Samantha Boevers and her son Porter, a 4-year-old with autism.

Yet Boevers and her family live in South Carolina – one of more than half a dozen states where schools are prohibited from requiring everyone on campus to mask up. Mask-wearing has been the exception rather than the rule in many of South Carolina’s school districts, and evidence suggests the trend has taken a toll. South Carolina has the third-highest rate of pediatric COVID-19 infections in the U.S., according to data collected by the American Academy of Pediatrics, with children accounting for roughly a fifth of the state’s positive cases.

With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Boevers and other parents and advocates recently filed suit in federal court challenging South Carolina’s ban on school mask mandates. The lawsuit, which names several state officials and local school boards as defendants, alleges South Carolina’s policy violates federal law by effectively excluding students with disabilities from participation in the public education system.

It’s one of at least seven lawsuits filed in recent weeks in states with similar restrictions – including Arizona, Florida and Texas – many saying the rules violate the rights of students with disabilities. In one of the Florida suits, a circuit court judge has already issued a ruling, concluding the state’s order banning school mask mandates is unlawful and districts have the right to set their own policies.

Insurance Lobbyists Block Reform in South Carolina

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of insurance.

Emily Wright at The State (SC):

In South Carolina, Ryan’s Law requires that large group health insurance plans and the State Health Plan cover autism therapy, but with many restrictions. It was enacted 12 years ago, and we now know that those restrictions are inappropriate. The data proves the therapy’s efficacy, and the costs are reasonable when distributed across policyholders. This law is working — for those fortunate to be covered by it.

My daughter has an individual health insurance plan, but this therapy is excluded in that kind of plan.

Why? I pay premiums too. Why doesn’t she have access to the same coverage?
I am also a small business owner. I could purchase small group health insurance, but S.C.’s law also allows the therapy to be excluded in those plans.

Autism advocates are in their fifth year of attempting to expand Ryan’s Law to include the individual and small group markets. Bill S.135 passed the Senate in 2015 but was blocked in a House committee. Bill H.3790 passed the House in 2017 but was blocked in a Senate committee. Now bill S.363 has been filed by Sen. Tom Davis. All three bills have essentially the same language.

Why has the same language passed both the House and Senate but still not become law? The powerful, big money insurance industry stopped it.

An alternate proposal was introduced by the insurance industry last year. The entire autism community opposes the proposal, but it managed to be fast-tracked through the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee. Fortunately, autism advocates stopped the bill on the Senate floor. But the same bill has been pre-filed this session (S.74).

South Carolina Has Low Medicaid Reimbursement Rates for ABA

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of insurance and Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

Lauren Saussner at The Post and Courier that the mother of a six-year in Lexington County, South Carolina is filing a federal suit against South Carolina's Medicaid agency.

Identified in the lawsuit as Z.M., the child's pediatrician recommended in 2015 that he receive dozens of hours of therapy each week, including six consultation hours of applied behavior analysis therapy.

But the lawsuit alleges that Medicaid's reimbursement rates for applied behavior analysis, or ABA, are so low that Z.M.'s parents cannot find a provider willing to offer the therapy their son needs. The lawsuit calls South Carolina's rate "among the worst in the nation."

...
The agency recently increased its rate to about $31 an hour for this therapy, but last year the department paid about $17 an hour.

The new rate falls far short of most other states.

Lorri Unumb, vice president for state government affairs at Autism Speaks, a national advocacy group, calculated the average rate among 30 states is about $44 an hour.

Both North Carolina and Georgia pay closer to $50, she said.

A Lawsuit in South Carolina

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of insurance and  Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

Jamie Self reports at The State:

S.C. children in need of intensive autism treatment cannot find therapists, and the state's Medicaid agency is to blame, according to a federal lawsuit that alleges the state is driving therapists away by failing to pay them enough.

The lawsuit was filed by Ashley Manley, a Lexington mother whose 6-year-old son has been waiting for more than two years to get more than 40 hours a week of in-home, intensive therapy. A doctor prescribed the therapy for the child after he was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

South Carolina's reimbursement rates for autism therapists are so low that they cannot afford to treat patients covered by Medicaid, the joint federal-state insurance program for the poor and disabled, according to the lawsuit. The suit, filed last week, names the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services and its director, Josh Baker, as defendants.

As a result of those low rates, some S.C. therapists refuse to accept Medicaid patients for the autism treatment, leading to a scarcity of therapists and long waits for their services, the suit alleges.

Movement on Insurance Age Caps

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of insurance 

From Autism Speaks:

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:00am, the South Carolina Senate Banking and Insurance Subcommittee will hear the Ryan's Law expansion bill (H. 3790). The hearing will take place in Committee Room 407 in the Gressette Senate Office Building (1101 Pendleton Street, Columbia, SC 29201). Families of individuals with autism are invited to attend and join our Autism Speaks staff.

Under Ryan's Law, which passed in 2007, large group and state employee insurance plans are required to cover treatement for autism, including up to $53,000 per year of Applied Behavior Analysis, up to the age of 16. House Bill 3790 would remove the age and dollar caps, as well as make the coverage available in individual and small group insurance plans.

Please join us on Wednesday as we work toward making treatment accessible for all South Carolinians with autism!

- Lorri Unumb and the Autism Speaks Advocacy Team
lorri.unumb@autismspeaks.org

A January 16 report from AP:

Three insurance companies in Mississippi have agreed to provide more extensive coverage of services for people with autism and other developmental disorders.

State law requires coverage of applied behavior analysis therapy for children through age 8.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney announced Tuesday that three insurers are removing the age cap and will provide services for people older than 8. They are BlueCross BlueShield of Mississippi, UnitedHealthcare of Mississippi and Magnolia Health.

Medicaid in South Carolina

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of insurance and  Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

South Carolina has low Medicaid reimbursement rates for ABA.  At The Post and Courier, Lauren Sausser reports:

Next year, this may change. S.C. Medicaid Director Joshua Baker wants to spend another $13.1 million during the 2018-2019 budget year to increase the reimbursement rate for ABA therapy from about $17 an hour to $24 an hour. If approved by the General Assembly, most of these new costs would be paid for by the federal government.

"What we’re committed to doing is monitoring the market and continuing to adjust our reimbursement," said Baker, who was named the new Medicaid director in November.

This increase is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough, said Lorri Unumb, vice president for state government affairs at Autism Speaks, a national advocacy group. Georgia, like North Carolina, also pays providers $50 an hour for Applied Behavior Analysis, she said.

"I think providers (in South Carolina) were hoping to get around the $40 mark," Unumb said. "I think we could do better, but I’m very appreciative that the state has taken note of the issue."

The state Medicaid agency is ushering in another big change this month. For years, children with autism in South Carolina only qualified for government benefits through a waiver program called the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Program.

But that program, administered by the S.C. Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, capped participation at 750 children at any given time. Hundreds of others who needed help were relegated to a waiting list.

Later this month, that waiver program will close. Any child diagnosed with autism who applies and qualifies for benefits will now receive them directly through the Medicaid agency.

Low Reiumbursement Rates in South Carolina

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as other government programs at the federal and state levels.

Tim Smith reports at The Greenville News:

A "large" number of South Carolina children suffering from autism are not getting access to medically necessary treatment they need because the state pays the lowest therapy rates in the nation, a lawyer representing advocates and organizations has told federal Medicaid officials.

In a letter to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid dated June 29, the advocates urge federal officials to direct the state Department of Health and Human Services to increase their reimbursement rates for applied behavior analysis treatments, what advocates believe offers the most hope for many who suffer from autism.

"Our most immediate concern is that a large number of South Carolina children are being deprived of access to prescribed, medically necessary ABA treatment because SCDHHS’ substandard reimbursement rate for these services — the lowest in the country, by far — has resulted in a lack of providers of this desperately needed care," Daniel Unumb wrote for the Autism Legal Resource Center and seven advocates and their organizations.

Unumb is the husband of Lorri Unumb, vice president of Autism Speaks and a new appointee for the state Department of Disabilities and Special Needs Commission. She also signed the letter.

Medicaid in South Carolina

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss health care issues and state Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

In Columbia, SC, Ashleigh Holland reports at WIS-TV:

Palmetto Autism Intervention (PAI) in Columbia is closing on June 30. The center provides therapy like Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a treatment many consider critical for those with autism.

The center is one of few that takes Medicaid patients. But they blame the slightly higher reimbursement plan for putting them out of business, saying a rise from $13.58 per hour to $17.28 per hour just isn't enough.

Autism Speaks advocate and parent Lorri Unumb takes up for the treatment center.

"They are people who spend their days sometimes being spit upon and sometimes scratched, and it’s a very, can be a very demanding job. These providers are being reimbursed at such a low rate that they literally cannot afford to serve Medicaid children," Unumb says.

wistv.com - Columbia, South Carolina

Waiting In South Carolina

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss health care issues and state Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

At The State, Jamie Self reports that there are long Medicaid waiting lists for ABA.

Behind the delay is South Carolina’s lowest-in-the-nation reimbursement rate for the therapy, advocates and providers say.

▪ Rates are so low – $13.58 an hour – that providers are backing out of the program, refusing to take on new patients like Zeph, who are covered by Medicaid, the joint federal-state insurance program for the poor and disabled
▪ A 27 percent increase — to $17.28 an hour — that goes into effect July 1 will leave South Carolina still in dead last, trailing the rates paid by the second-lowest state by about $13 an hour. The national average is $43 an hour, according to Autism Speaks, a national advocacy group.
▪ Making matters worse, an expansion of the program next month to include older patients could add hundreds of children and adults to the list of Medicaid patients awaiting autism treatment.

Of coruse, the problem will get worse if Congress carries out Trumpcare cuts in Medicaid.