Passage of Mental Health Parity Act lauded
Iam sure most of you have been paying very close attention to what's been happening with our economy. I am also sure that you were riveted, as I was, when the very contentious economic bailout package that started out as a 2 1/2-page proposal had ballooned to about 450 pages.

But I was not as interested in the overall package for the same reasons you might have been. And I was not really interested in the addendums the package included like tax breaks for manufacturers of wooden arrows for children and owners of stock car racetracks.

By far the most important and far-reaching was a new law that requires equal insurance coverage for mental and physical illnesses. I must tell you that I am among those who look at this as a civil rights milestone. Why? Because this legislation basically states that a mentally ill person has a disease of the brain, as does a person with a brain tumor. Both deserve equal treatment. Did you know, for example, that each year, American workers lose 200 million workdays to depression alone, at a cost of $44 billion to employers for treatment, absenteeism and lost productivity? What the new law does is to require health insurers to provide benefits, co-payments and treatments for mental health services and substance abuse disorders equal to traditional medical coverage.

People with mental illness, which in some form affects more than one in three Americans, have traditionally received fewer benefits, with higher co-pays and deductibles and stricter limits on treatment, than the physically ill. Under the new law, these individuals will have easier and cheaper access to treatment for conditions such as depression, schizophrenia and alcohol and drug abuse.

This new law (better known as The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008) will help remove the stigma long associated with mental illness.

The fact is that many mental illnesses, including substance abuse, are chronic conditions as well as physical conditions, so the issue of parity in coverage is one that will affect millions of Americans for their whole lives. Especially in these dispiriting days of unfinished wars and economic upheavals, it's heartening that in at least one area of American life, our government did the right thing in treating mental and physical illness equally. If you have an opinion about this column and would like to share it with us, write to us at NCADD of Middlesex County Inc. at ezra@ncadd-middle sex.org.
Ezra Helfand
NCADD of Middlesex
County Inc.
East Brunswick