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NEWS

EDUCATION NEWS

Families push for hearing aid bill

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Monday, July 9, 2007

By GIOVANNA FABIANO
STAFF WRITER

Across the state, most parents of hearing-impaired children are forced to pay out of pocket for hearing aids, but the high and frequent cost can be crippling to the average middle-class family.

North Jersey families have been fighting back, lobbying for a bill that would require insurance companies to partially cover the cost of hearing aids for children under 15.

Despite the support of deaf advocacy groups, education associations and several politicians, a bill known as "Grace's Law" after Grace Gleba, an 8-year-old Warren County girl with severe hearing loss, has been stalled in the state Legislature for nearly eight years.

Prompted by local families struggling with expenses related to hearing loss, Fair Lawn has become the first North Jersey community to adopt a resolution in support of the bill, hoping to place New Jersey on a growing list of states with health insurance mandates for the hearing impaired. The states are Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Rhode Island.

Most insurance companies don't pay for hearing aids at any age, but children often require new devices every few years at a cost of about $3,000 to $5,000 a pair. Batteries usually run out every few weeks and new ear molds, at about $150 a pair, need to be replaced two or three times a year.

Easing burden

•  Grace's Law would require insurance companies, the State Health Benefits Plan and N.J. Family Care to cover expenses incurred in obtaining medically necessary hearing aids for people 15 years of age and younger.

•  Named after Grace Gleba, an 8-year-old Warren County girl with a severe hearing impairment, the bill would allow for up to $1,000 in coverage for hearing aids every 24 months.

•  The bill has been before the Assembly Appropriations Committee since last year. It is sponsored by Assemblyman Neil Cohen and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts Jr.

•  For more information on the bill or to sign a petition, visit graceslaw.com.

Mounds of paperwork

Though most low-income residents qualify for hearing aid coverage through Medicaid, the insurance program does not typically provide the entire cost, said Ellen Hansen, a pediatric audiologist at the Summit Speech School for the Hearing Impaired, which serves and counsels children from birth to age 5.

In special cases, the school and deaf advocacy groups can petition the state to assist in paying for children's hearing aids, but the process of acquiring the proper approvals can be slow and painstaking.

"It's a wonderful program, but it does take a long time because of all the paperwork, and we're losing that critical time when kids should be fitted with hearing aids," Hansen said.

That said, the majority of middle-class families don't qualify, she said.

Kathleen Treni, principal of Bergen County's Secondary Hearing Impaired Program at Midland Park High School, which serves more than 150 North Jersey families, has lobbied for Grace's Law through the New Jersey Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Treni, who is deaf, believes hearing aids help children with hearing loss adapt to the mainstream by providing them with the necessary language and speech input.

"Hearing aids make the difference between a child being educationally, socially and, eventually, economically independent or not," Treni said.

Deaf advocacy groups agree, arguing that children who are not fitted with proper amplification at an early age often fall behind in the classroom, costing the state hundreds of thousands of dollars in special needs services.

According to the Division of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the socioeconomic and educational effects on children who are not aided during the critical years of language development can be catastrophic.

Stuart Pace Jr. is in honors classes in the hearing impaired program at Midland Park High School, plays on the high school basketball and baseball teams and juggles a part-time job. But without the help of hearing aids, his father says the 16-year-old Fair Lawn boy would be lost.

Like Stuart, there are 6 million people nationwide who depend on hearing aids. In New Jersey, 10 percent of public school children have some form of impairment that requires amplification devices.

To date, the Paces have spent more than $15,000 on hearing aids since Stuart, a student in the Secondary Hearing Impaired Program at Midland Park High School, was first fitted for the devices at age 3.

"My complaint all along has been that people who are going through alcohol and drug rehabilitation get coverage, yet there's no coverage whatsoever for people who have a physical disability they can't prevent," said Stuart's father, Stuart Pace Sr., who approached Fair Lawn Councilwoman Jeanne Baratta about passing a resolution in support of the bill.

Across the state, only Manville, Somerville and Washington Township, the Glebas' hometown, have passed similar resolutions.

"It's absolutely crucial that he has the hearing aids," Pace added.

Jeanine Gleba, the leading advocate for Grace's Law, began lobbying for hearing aid bills in 1999 after learning her daughter Grace was severely hearing impaired. She said hearing aid assistance for children is critical. Today, Grace, a second-grader who is mainstreamed in a public elementary school, is a cheerleader who gets straight A's and reads at a sixth-grade level.

"She wouldn't be in mainstream school or doing any of these things if she didn't have her hearing aids, but they are a huge expense," Gleba said.

Hansen, of the Summit School, said forcing parents to pay out of pocket for hearing aids also defeats the purpose of the universal newborn screening law, which went into effect in New Jersey in 2002.

The law requires all newborns to be screened for hearing loss so they can be fitted for hearing aids immediately.

"The whole purpose of that law is to diagnose them early and get hearing aids fitted at three to six months, but these parents are hit with the fact that their child has hearing loss and suddenly find out they have to spend four, five, six thousand dollars out of pocket for hearing aids, which is a crime," Hansen said.

"The first three years of age is a critical time for developing speech and language and once you get past that, it's very hard to make up for lost time," Hansen said.

While Gleba describes Grace's progress as "a miracle," she remains a tireless advocate of the law in her child's name, despite its slow movement in the State House. The bill passed the full Assembly but remains stalled in the appropriations committee, Gleba said.

Although hearing aids are deemed a medically necessary treatment, insurance companies typically categorize them as personal devices used for comfort or convenience, Gleba said.

'Huge dollar-saver'

Fair Lawn resident Matthew Ahearn, a former state assemblyman who introduced a similar hearing aid bill in the 1990s, said the state budget committee often doesn't take long-term cost savings into account.

"It's a great bill and it's gone through various revisions, but at this point, it needs to get out of appropriations," Ahearn said.

"It's a huge dollar-saver over the years in terms of special education costs, but when it comes to the budget impact, long-term costs aren't calculated," he said.

Pace, who has also lobbied for the bill by signing petitions and sending letters to local, county and state politicians, said he hopes someone in Trenton will "rise to the challenge to fight the insurance industry."

"My son hasn't let any of this hinder his ability to do anything, but when hearing aids are $3,000 a pair, you try to push the limits of how long you use them," Pace said.

"People should have some help."

E-mail: [email-masked]

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