Hillary Clinton makes campaign stop in St. Louis

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to supporters during a campaign stop at a union hall on Friday, Dec. 11, 2015, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Alabama is only one of seven states that don't require private health plans to cover services to treat autism, but Hillary Clinton is unveiling a plan later Tuesday that would force the state and the six others to make autism coverage mandatory if she's elected president, a Clinton campaign official told AL.com.

Clinton is expected to announce the plan at a campaign event in Sioux City, Iowa. Although the Alabama legislature passed a compromise bill in 2012 that gave businesses the option to include autism coverage through the insurance plans they offered, it didn't mandate that autism be covered.

"As president, I would work with leaders in Alabama to remedy this situation as quickly as possible," the former secretary of state said in a prepared statement. "This is a sensible, cost-effective way to show that Alabama stands with families across the state that are coping everyday with autism."

In Iowa, Clinton is expected to talk about the high costs incurred by families to treat a child with autism, the campaign official said. Her plan includes a nationwide early screening outreach campaign so children from underserved backgrounds can be properly diagnosed. African-American and Latino children and girls of all backgrounds are the groups most likely to receive late diagnoses.

Clinton is also expected to unveil the Autism Works Initiative, which would create public-private partnerships that helps transition children out of school-based programs after they graduate, as well as supporting legislation that would ban restraints and bullying against autistic children in schools.

The former secretary of state will also call on the government to enforce a federal law from 2008 that treats mental illnesses and physical illnesses the same for insurance purposes.

More than 3.5 million Americans are estimated to have autism or an autism spectrum disorder, including 5,917 children in Alabama between the ages of 3 and 21. One in 68 children in the U.S. was identified as having a disorder on the autism spectrum in 2010, according to a CDC estimate - a rate higher than cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and Down syndrome combined.