Every time Pennsylvania Rep. Brandon Markosek (D) speaks in public, he knows he could be making a difference for kids who, like him, have a stutter.
He now wants to make a broader and more tangible impact, using his personal experience to help pass legislation that would require health insurers to cover speech therapy for childhood stuttering.
“I like to be open about trying to break the stigma around stuttering,” Markosek said in an interview. “But now, with the bill that we’ve introduced, it’s not just breaking the stigma, but also providing help.”
The bill, which the House passed in July, is modeled after one that sailed through Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature and Gov. Andy Beshear (D) signed in April. Delaware legislators passed a similar bill in June, while one in West Virginia did not make it out of committee.
Read more of our interview with Rep. Brandon Markosek here.
According to the National Institutes of Health, 5%-10% of all children will stutter for some period in their life, lasting from a few weeks to several years. Stutters occur most often in children between the ages of 2 and 6 as they are developing their language skills.
Early treatment can prevent stuttering from becoming a lifelong problem. But not every plan will cover it. Some even specifically exclude stuttering treatment, according to the National Stuttering Association.
Markosek and other legislators leading the charge to change that have been assisted by an advocate who wants to use his stature to help others: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, a former No. 2 overall draft pick in the NBA and University of Kentucky basketball star, who also has a stutter.
Kidd-Gilchrist said in an interview he has been in contact with lawmakers in more than a half-dozen states about potential legislation, through the nonprofit he launched in 2021, Change & Impact.
“We are always looked upon as we are dumb or stupid or even, even illiterate,” Kidd-Gilchrist said in an interview. “People who stutter, we are smart and, and we are important. So any type of law, in any state, in terms of stuttering, it’s always important.”
Kidd-Gilchrist, who was born in Philadelphia and raised in New Jersey, didn’t have access to speech therapy until his freshman year at the University of Kentucky, when he was a standout on the NCAA championship-winning team. “It was a lot of media, and I was the freshman on campus,” he said. “I didn’t have any confidence in myself.”
Markosek didn’t speak until he was 3, when he started seeing a speech therapist at Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital through coverage from his parents’ private insurance. He developed a “horrible stutter” that made him reluctant to raise his hand in class until he was in college, he said.
For much of Markosek’s six years in office, he has tried to use his platform to give a voice to people with stutters. People frequently pull him aside to tell him about a family member who stutters. But he wanted to do more.
He heard about Kidd-Gilchrist’s efforts in Kentucky at a conference in the spring and searched for the bill text that night.
“From that moment on, we connected,” Markosek said of Kidd-Gilchrist. “I’m proud to call him a friend now. We talk almost daily, and his story is just like mine. We stuttered pretty much our entire lives, and we went on to have successful careers. And we’re both big champions of people who stutter.”
There wasn’t much vocal opposition to any of the speech therapy bills. AHIP, an association of health insurance providers, did not testify against them.
But spokesperson James Swann said AHIP generally finds that “state mandates increase costs of coverage — especially for families who buy coverage without subsidies, small business owners who cannot or do not wish to self-insure, and taxpayers who foot the bill for the state’s share of those mandates.”
Still, more states are likely to consider them.
Markosek and Kidd-Gilchrist’s advocacy resonated with Illinois Sen. Willie Preston (D). He encountered them and the Kentucky bill sponsor, Rep. Michael Pollock (R), at the National Conference of State Legislatures’s annual summit in August, where they were featured panelists.
Preston said he developed a stutter when he was 12 and spent hours staring at himself in a mirror trying to make it stop. The stutter resolved on its own, but he still has a lisp. He is now a father of two children who have benefited from speech therapy.
“This is an issue that many people face,” Preston said. He plans to introduce a bill in the coming weeks that is modeled after Kentucky’s. Kidd-Gilchrist is coming to the state to promote it at the end of September.
“The major goal is to make sure that affordability isn’t an issue for the folks who suffer from stuttering,” Preston said. “I am screaming to the rooftops from this point forward that people who stutter can live the most, the highest quality of life, like the rest of us, and as the state of Illinois, we have a role in ensuring that they have the support they need.”
Markosek still sees a speech therapist and stutters to varying degrees every day. He also prefaces every public statement with an acknowledgement that he has a stutter.
That’s what he did on the Pennsylvania House floor this summer, when he introduced his bill for its first vote.
“I would like to start by noting that I talk with a stutter, so if I get stuck today, please um, please, um, um, um, bear with me,” he said, before describing how speech therapy has helped him cope.
“Here I am now, talking in front of the Pennsylvania General Assembly about stuttering,” Markosek said, drawing a lengthy applause from the chamber.
The House passed the bill 181-21. The Senate has until the end of the year to take action.