WEDNESDAY, Oct. 7 (Health.com) — By the time the gargantuan $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill was passed and signed last Friday, it contained a landmark piece of legislation that just might improve—surprise!—the quality of our lives. Dubbed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, the law forces most insurance plans to offer the same coverage for mental problems as they do for physical ailments.
No longer can insurers discriminate against people with bipolar disorder, say, or alcoholism, by providing fewer benefits than they do for broken bones and breast cancer. Longstanding restrictions on mental health and substance-abuse treatment will be lifted, ranging from higher deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-pocket expenses to the automatic cutoffs (typically at 30) for hospital days and therapy sessions.
Hard times, good timing
The timing couldn’t be better, of course, with our moods growing darker daily along with the economic outlook. But while the financial rescue was passed in a single week, mental health parity took 18 years to gain critical mass.
“There’s been a revolution in the science and treatment of mental health in the past two decades,” says Andrew Sperling, the director of federal legislative advocacy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), who helped push the bill through Congress starting with its first draft. As evidence accumulated of the biological basis for diseases ranging from schizophrenia to obsessive-compulsive disorder to addiction, yielding targets for the development of effective drugs, the managed-care industry could no longer justify controlling costs by relegating mental health issues to second-class status.
Next page: Why depression isn’t cheap





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Comments (1)
I have all the symptoms of depression.Which include feeling sador anxious for long periods.Feeling hopeless. Having difficulty concentrating,remembering and making decisions. Have decrease interest in usual activities. Have suicidal thoughts. Not enjoying things I normally would enjoy. I am currently on lamictal package where you take 1 tablet for 2 weeks then you go to 2 or 50mg a day.Then I go to 100mg. I was also prescribed clonazepam 0.5mg.three times a day(which I have not taken.These rx.were prescribed by a new psychrist I went to on 8/24/09. I also take zyxprea 10 mgs @ night.In addition I take 2 lithium 300mg at night.These were prescribed by another physician while a pt.in the hospital when I took a drug overdose and was a patient in the psychiatric hospital. My current condition has not gotten much better. My current doctor did not okay the zyxprea or the lithium. My family feels I did well on these two medications before I stopped taking them. I felt great for a couple of months after I went off them. My daughter insists I started being suicidal,depressed,etc. and that is why I chose to start them again(my regular physician whom I have been a patient gave me 2 refills the last time I saw him). I am so confused I don’t know what to do or take now. Any reply or suggestions would be appreciated.