Health Care

It can be hard for autistic people to get the health care we need. Some obstacles to getting care are not having insurance, having insurance that doesn’t cover what we need, or not being near health care providers. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) made it much easier for autistic people to get good insurance. It is important to protect the progress we made. There is still so much more to do to make sure that everyone who needs health care can get it. Efforts to make health care better need to focus on strengthening, improving, or going beyond the ACA. 

Read more about health care, key laws, and our work on health care rights here.

Resources

• AutismAndHealth.org: Primary Care Resources for Adults on the Autism Spectrum and their Primary Care Providers

COVID-19

• COVID-19 Case Tracker
• COVID-19 Plain Language Resources Plain Language

Toolkits

• Roadmap to Transition: A Handbook for Autistic Youth Transitioning to Adulthood Plain Language
• A Self Advocate’s Guide to Managed Long-Term Services and Supports Plain Language Easy Read
• A Self-Advocate’s Guide to Medicaid Plain Language Easy Read
• Affordable Care Act Toolkit for Self-Advocates  Plain Language Easy Read
• Toolkit for Advocates on Ending Discrimination in Organ Transplantation
• Toolkit for Advocates on Health Care and the Transition to Adulthood
• Real Talk: Improving Quality of Sexual Health Care for Patients with Disabilities

Policy Briefs & Reports

• First-Hand Perspectives on Behavioral Interventions for Autistic People and People with other Developmental Disabilities
• The Affordable Care Act and the I/DD Community: An Overview of the Law and Advocacy Priorities Going Forward
• The Case for Designating People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities as a Medically Underserved Population
• Policy Analysis for the revised Autism Criteria in the DSM-5.
• Organ Transplantation and People with I/DD: A Review of Research, Policy and Next Steps
• Our Lives, Our Health Care: Self Advocates Speaking Out