Social Impact Heroes: “How Gary Ackerman has ensured that there was a place in Las Vegas to help those affected by spectrum disorders”
Published in
9 min readMar 5, 2020
Autism is an epidemic in America, affecting 1 out of every 59 children born in our country. No other malady even comes close to those numbers. Families have to fight to get any insurance at all in most states. In Nevada, for instance, we are lucky that our state mandates coverage. Sadly they don’t get involved in the rate structure so all the insurance companies want to pay the same or a bit less than Medicaid. Our Medicaid rate is one of the lowest in the country so every time the center sees a child, they lose money! Our society needs to understand that if we can diagnose and treat these children when they are babies, it will save literally millions of dollars in support that they will need when they are adults and can’t hold down a job.
