[Note: Shared for #AutisticHistory archive purposes. This is NOT An Autistic Ally.]
UTC To Voluntarily Offer Autism Insurance Benefits
September 16, 2013
HARTFORD, CT (September 16, 2013) — United Technologies Corporation (UTC) has alerted its employees that it will voluntarily start offering autism insurance benefits, including coverage of applied behavior analysis (ABA), starting in 2014.
Listed in Fortune’s Top 50 U.S. corporations, UTC self-insures its employee health benefit plan and therefore is covered under federal ERISA law, which does not require coverage of autism-related benefits, such as ABA and speech, occupational and physical therapy. However, UTC has decided to voluntarily start offering the benefits to its employees.
UTC joins other major ERISA employers, such as IBM, Home Depot, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Abbott Labs, Michelin, Princeton University and others in voluntarily offering autism benefits. GM and Chrysler earlier this summer announced it would extend the coverage.
UTC includes Otis elevators, Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines, Sikorsky helicopters, aerospace systems, and climate, control and security operations.
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Note/Warning:
Autistic people have fought the inclusion of ABA in therapy for us since before Autism Speaks, and other non-Autistic-led autism organizations, started lobbying legislation to get it covered by insurances and Medicaid.
ABA is a myth originally sold to parents that it would keep their Autistic child out of an institution. Today, parents are told that with early intervention therapy their child will either be less Autistic or no longer Autistic by elementary school, and can be mainstreamed in typical education classes. ABA is very expensive to pay out of pocket. Essentially, Autism Speaks has justified the big price tag up front will offset the overall burden on resources for an Autistic’s lifetime. The recommendation for this therapy is 40 hours a week for children and toddlers.
The original study that showed the success rate of ABA to be at 50% has never been replicated. In fact, the study of ABA by United States Department of Defense was denounced as a failure. Not just once, but multiple times. Simply stated: ABA doesn’t work. In study after repeated study: ABA (conversion therapy) doesn’t work.
What more recent studies do show: Autistics who experienced ABA therapy are at high risk to develop PTSD and other lifelong trauma-related conditions. Historically, the autism organizations promoting ABA as a cure or solution have silenced Autistic advocates’ opposition. ABA is also known as gay conversion therapy.
The ‘cure’ for Autistics not born yet is the prevention of birth.
The ‘cure’ is a choice to terminate a pregnancy based on ‘autism risk.’ The cure is abortion. This is the same ‘cure’ society has for Down Syndrome.
This is eugenics 2021. Instead of killing Autistics and disabled children in gas chambers or ‘mercy killings’ like in Aktion T4, it’ll happen at the doctor’s office, quietly, one Autistic baby at a time. Different approaches yes, but still eugenics and the extinction of an entire minority group of people.
Fact: You can’t cure Autistics from being Autistic.
Fact: You can’t recover an Autistic from being Autistic.
Fact: You can groom an Autistic to mask and hide their traits. Somewhat. … however, this comes at the expense of the Autistic child, promotes Autistic Burnout (this should not be confused with typical burnout, Autistic Burnout can kill Autistics), and places the Autistic child at high risk for PTSD and other lifelong trauma-related conditions.
[Note: Autism is NOT a disease, but a neurodevelopmental difference and disability.]
Fact: Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism.
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