Furious Seasons

September 20, 2007

Senate Passes Mental Health Parity

I'm late with this: on Monday, the Senate passed mental health parity legislation. It was approved unanimously, which is stunning to me given all the years that members of the GOP fought the bill. The bill moves onto the House which already has enough co-sponsors for the bill, 270, to pass the legislation.

Perhaps one day the treatments and care covered by this landmark legislation will work as smoothly. I'm not holding my breath.

Statements were issued by MHA, and NAMI.

The American Psychiatric Association's president, Carolyn Robinowitz, offered this: "We know firsthand that treatment works."

Perhaps she missed my reporting yesterday on the 6,000-plus deaths reportedly caused by several psych meds. The American Psychological Association had nothing to say about the bill's passage.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at September 20, 2007 12:01 AM

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Comments

This is news to me. Wow. Huge news. This will affect alot of people. IMO I guess no one told the Senate that no one has ever has been cured of a mental illness.

Posted by: mark p.s. at September 20, 2007 07:48 PM

I remember writing an article at the Seattle Weekly about a particular bill (HR 525) that, if passed, would undermine parity by way of creating a federal insurance plan -- Association Health Plans (AHPs) -- which would appeal to small businesses. That was one of the greatest articles of my life!!!

Posted by: Gwen at September 23, 2007 10:23 AM

I seem to be the only person I know with a mental illness dx to be against parity for mental health. The reasons?
1) I've seen so many people hurt and so few helped by mental "health" practitioners that I can't even consider it a medical science at this point.
2) The price. As long as the psychiatrists charge the obscene amounts of $$$ per hour they currently charge, I will be against this money-making (for the pdocs) concept. I wouldn't pay $200 per hour to see god, frankly, let alone some bozo in a suit shelling out pills.

As I said, I'm clearly in the minority on this.

Posted by: Sherry at November 12, 2007 07:27 AM