The Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY — A Democratic state lawmaker launched an effort Thursday to force Republican leaders in the House to schedule a vote on legislation that would require health insurers to cover the diagnosis and treatment of autism.

Rep. Mike Brown of Tahlequah is collecting his colleagues’ signatures to force GOP House leaders to pull the autism bill out of a House-Senate conference committee where it is stalled and schedule it for a vote on the House floor. The measure has already been approved by the Senate.

“This is an issue that I think should be taken up,” Brown said. “I just don’t feel like the public has gotten a fair shake on this.”

“It’s a last ditch effort, one of our options,” said Wayne Rohde of Edmond, whose 10-year-old son, Nick Rohde, suffers from autism. The autism mandate bill originally passed by the Senate was dubbed “Nick’s Law.”

Brown said he needs the signatures of two-thirds of the House’s 101 members, or 68 signatures, to force the bill to the House floor. So far, Brown said, he has 48 signatures — those of the House’s 44 Democrats and four Republicans.

Brown identified the Republicans as Reps. Scott Martin of Norman, Charlie Joyner of Midwest City, Dave Dank of Oklahoma City and Doug Cox of Grove, the only physician in the Oklahoma Legislature.

Republican House Speaker Chris Benge of Tulsa has not acted on requests to schedule the autism mandate bill for a vote. Benge and other House Republicans have expressed concern that the mandate will drive up the cost of health insurance policies and make it unaffordable for many Oklahomans.

“It’s just not going to happen unless the speaker wants it to happen,” Brown said.

By not scheduling a vote, House leaders are turning their backs on special needs children, Rohde said.

“That is not right,” he said. “They do not want a mandate passed.”

A cost analysis of the autism mandate indicates it would increase the cost of state employee health insurance by $6 million a year, according to House leaders. That does not include possible cost increases imposed by private health insurers.

But the Senate author of the autism measure, Sen. Jay Paul Gumm, D-Durant, has said an actuarial study by James Bouder of the Vista Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based autism advocacy group, indicates his legislation would have an impact of less than half of 1 percent on insurance rates.

The analysis says the Oklahoma bill likely would cost Oklahoma health insurance ratepayers about 0.47 percent, or $1.66 per month.

“I’m not for running insurance rates out of the world,” Brown said. But the impact of the autism mandate “is minimal,” he said.