Louie

Age 6 Louisiana

Meet Louie. Louie is a sweet, loving, bright, funny, active kid who gives the best hugs, loves playing outside with water, visiting the gym at his school, painting, and watching videos on his tablet. He loves Thomas the Tank Engine and enjoys reading books with his dad. Louie is a whiz with his AAC device and he has recently started saying words. Louie has Autism spectrum; childhood apraxia of speech; and sensory processing disorder. He receives 30 hours a week of therapy in a private clinic setting, and uses an AAC device to help him communicate.

Louie’s mom Kathleen says: “Being able to access health insurance for Louie through the exchange was a godsend for us. After his diagnosis at age 2, we found out that my employer-provided plan did not cover his various therapies. We spent tens of thousands of dollars that year paying for treatment out of pocket. We are still feeling the financial repercussions of those expenses. When open enrollment came around, we were able to get him his own individual plan on the health insurance exchange. It has meant the difference between him getting care and not. I cried the day I first signed him up in 2016 because I was so relieved. Losing protections and re-implementing lifetime caps would be disastrous for Louie and our family. He needs highly specialized care, which is very expensive. He has made a miraculous amount of progress over the past four years, and if we lose his access to coverage I fear he will regress. We have come too far and fought too hard to go back now.”

Submitted by Kathleen Ide, Louie’s mother