Friday, June 09, 2006
WASHINGTON,-- Millions of Americans have found out the tough way that employer-provided health plans present far more limited mental health benefits than for physical illnesses.
"This lack of parity is leading to a national mental health crisis and is costing far more than providing proper coverage," says Pamela Greenberg, chair of the Coalition for Fairness in Mental Illness Coverage.
"Lack of true mental health parity, coupled with ignorance and social stigma about mental illness, means that our nation faces a mental health crisis that will continue to skyrocket with crippling effects for many Americans, their families, communities and their employers," Greenberg stresses.
"Our family was fortunate enough to have the financial resources to sustain my son's mental health crisis -- and it still required a titanic lift from everyone involved. But the sad reality is that there are millions of families whose insurance won't cover their children's psychiatric care," remarks Griffith, whose journal Will's Choice examines how she coped with her son's depression and confronted a health care system fraught with economic inequalities.
Today's health plans regularly provide coverage for mental health that is far more incomplete than coverage for physical illnesses. Some patients now face lifetime coverage limits of the number of action sessions they could receive -- regardless of their medical needs. But insurance sets no similar advantage limits on needed treatment for any other illness.
"A comprehensive parity law is more than a decade overdue. We need to end insurance discrimination against people with mental health problems," emphasizes Greenberg.
posted by kanth
@ 2:03 AM
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1 Comments:
At 2:40 PM,
Danny Haszard said…
Well said,i applaud your blog, mental health consumers are the least capable of self advocacy,my doctors made me take zyprexa for 4 years which was ineffective for my symptoms.
I now have a victims support page against Eli Lilly for it's Zyprexa product causing my diabetes.--Daniel Haszard www.zyprexa-victims.com
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