The Virginia General Assembly is likely to approve a new mandate on health insurers to cover specialized treatment for autism. House Speaker Bill Howell, who supports the measure, believes it has been drawn narrowly enough that it won’t pose an undue burden on insurance premiums. Advocates say it will “…cost businesses less than $1 per month per autistic child…” Perhaps so. But it will still raise costs, something Virginia lawmakers have made quite a habit.
A 2010 survey health insurance mandates by the Council for Affordable Health Care finds that states impose 2,156 mandates on health insurers. Virginia has 57 separate mandates for coverage – more than all its bordering states save Maryland, with 67. About half the states in the country have an autism mandate, which, by the Council’s reckoning, adds anywhere between one and three percent to premium costs.
It’s not the most expensive mandate – that honor goes to “mental health parity,” which requires mental health coverage to be equal to coverage provided for physical illness. This mandate raises premiums between 5 and 10 percent.
Most of Virginia’s mandates are estimated to raise premium costs less than one percent – including coverage for prosthetics, hospice care and dental anesthesia. It’s the relatively low cost of these mandates than can lead some legislators to believe that one more won’t break the bank.
But add them all together and the bank’s wall get a bit wobbly. Want to see a chiropractor or acupuncturist? Virginia has an insurance mandate for that. The state also requires coverage for family counselors, social workers, osteopaths, nurse midwives and many more.
Individual states are entirely within their rights to impose such mandates, just as advocates can push for whatever sort of insurance mandate they deem necessary.
But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that each new mandate adds cost – for everyone. And eventually, those added costs may price some Virginians out of the health insurance market altogether…further raising the costs on the rest of us.
