Court Opinion

ID: 9820142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:56:27.487104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:37.254776
License: Public Domain

. DISSENTING STATEMENT BY
FITZGERALD, J.:
I respectfully dissent. Insurance coverage of autism-related services conducted at schools via the Autism Coverage Law (“ACL”) is a laudable and noteworthy goal. As the majority observes, thirty members of the Legislature, the former Governor, and the Pennsylvania Insurance Department support a construction of the law requiring private health insurers to cover applied behavior analysis (“ABA”) autism treatment services conducted at schools, thereby relieving the Commonwealth from shouldering some of the costs. But in my view, I perceive no statutory basis warranting that construction. If our Legislature intended for private health insurers to cover ABA services provided in schools, then it could have explicitly excluded such services from the limiting provision at 40 P.S. § 764h(c). Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.