Saturday, March 8, 2008

Paul Wellstone’s legacy


House passes Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act.

I live in Minnesota, so it is with great pride that I report that the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed mental health and addiction legislation named after the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, involving issues that were very close to his heart.

Wellstone, who died in a plane crash in northern Minnesota in 2002, was a two-term Democratic Senator who championed the cause of full medical insurance for the coverage of addiction treatment and mental illness. The Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007, sponsored by Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, passed the U.S. House on a vote of 268-148. The legislation will now be the subject of negotiations with the U.S. Senate, which earlier passed a similar but less stringent bill, sponsored by Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s father, Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Rep. Jim Ramstad of Minnesota, one of the bill’s key backers, and a recovering alcoholic, told Kevin Diaz of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “This is not just another policy issue. It’s a matter of life and death for millions of Americans.”

The bill would require insurers to cover mental illness and addiction using the same guidelines as any other physical disease or ailment. Health insurance industry spokespeople said the bill goes too far, and would drive up health insurance premiums by mandating additional expensive treatments. The Senate version does not mandate mental health coverage, and offers exemptions for smaller group health plans.

But advocates of the Wellstone Act say that the provisions in the bill are long overdue. “We’re no longer going to allow people to languish in the shadows,” said Rep. Kennedy.

The House and Senate will also have to grapple with how the new bill will effect existing state legislation. According to Victoria Colliver in the San Francisco Chronicle, more than 25 states already have laws on the books mandating mental health coverage. Said California State Assemblyman Jim Beall Jr., who supports the Wellstone Bill: “If you don’t cover moderate mental problems or substance abuse, which often go together… you would not treat the person until their problems become acute—that’s not good health care.”

3 comments:

Unknown said...

While I have seen few cases of effective mental health treatment even where cost is no object, I do agree that we need to handle addiction under insurance. It is a good investment for the company and the country but it is the ultimate gift to the addicted and their families.

As the director of Novus Medical Detox, I daily see the ravages caused by prescription drug addiction created by doctors prescribing it to their patients and then the patients either continuing to obtain it or purchasing these drugs on the internet or the street. Probably the worst of these drugs is OxyContin--legal heroin.

Pain is real. I have had it much of my life first from polio and then from two surgeries. However, there are alternatives to painkillers and they must be tried first. Let's not treat the symptoms but the cause.

Prescription drug addiction is an epidemic and we must do everything we can to stop it before it overwhelms us. Education is a must.

Steve Hayes
http://novusdetox.com

Owen Gray said...

It's nice to see that "the Democratic Wing" of the Democratic Party is alive and well -- and interested in the well being of a significant portion of the population.

Dirk Hanson said...

Hi Owen:

We here in Minnesota sorely miss Senator Wellstone. His plane crashed about an hour's drive from my house. Sad accident all around.

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