Hat tip to Rum, Romanism and Rebellion: And they wonder why they have a gender gap
This is our very own Senator from Arizona and the Senate Republican whip, complaining that his insurance plan (which he is part of a pool that includes females) covers maternity.
Is it any wonder, when Republicans keep electing chauvinists like Senator Kyl to their leadership, why women have voted more and more heavily Democratic over the years?
I hope he will write a thank you letter to female members of his insurance pool next time he gets a prostate exam.
Showing posts with label health insurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health insurance. Show all posts
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Baucus plan featuring mandates would be worse than doing nothing
After spending months pushing back the deadline to get anything out of his committee in a vain attempt to reach anything bipartisan, Montana Democrat Max Baucus has a plan.
And it's a really bad plan. Of course he has no public option and instead favors non-profit 'co-ops' (no surprise there, we've been hearing about that for months.) But the things that really stand out are health insurance mandates (something that President Obama opposed during last year's campaign.) He backs the mandates with hefty fines for people who don't buy their own private insurance.
Of course Baucus points out that his plan includes tax credits to help people who buy their own insurance recoup costs.
How quaint. The tax credits don't even cover most of the cost of insurance, which averages about $13,000 per year for a typical family of four. Further, when do you get a tax credit? Usually when you get your income tax refund (unless of course either spouse has a court judgement of any type against them, in which case the tax credit would presumably go where refunds go now-- to their creditors. Wow, so if you were forced to declare bankruptcy because of medical costs your Baucus tax credit would go to pay your old creditors.) But even if you do get the credit, it won't be until months after you've had to start shelling out over a thousand dollars a month. And that even assumes that your family is in reasonably good health, otherwise you might be paying more-- much, much more.
The fine in the Baucus proposal for not buying insurance could run as high as $3,800 per year.
Isn't this exactly the same plan as Mittcare in Massachusetts? Require everyone to buy insurance, fine the tar out of them if they don't and maybe send them a relatively small check months or even years later to pay them back for it?
Mandates like these are terrible ideas. Many people live paycheck to paycheck and requiring them to pony up this much money is almost sadistically cruel. If someone isn't buying health insurance because they can't pay their bills now, then how can you require them to come up with over $1,000 a month more?
I know that if I and my wife didn't get insurance through our employers (who pay part of the premium) there is no way I could afford to start paying that much more every month.
I think the answer lies in Washington. Like in the case of Mitt Romney (who was worth over a quarter billion dollars when Mittcare was passed in his state) Senator Baucus is used to throwing around hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars. So he has no comprehension of how hard it would be for most people to shell out a thousand dollars a month. I mean heck, people write him campaign contributions for several times that amount all the time. Stretching your last couple of dollars to buy groceries and gambling that they won't shut off the electricity until after you get paid is so far beyond his comprehension that he has no clue that some people don't have thousands of dollars sitting in the bank they can just use to buy health insurance until the tax credit comes through and gives them a third of it back.
Supporters of such a plan liken it to automobile insurance, which is also mandatory in every state. However there is a key difference: you don't have to drive a car at all. Many people don't, especially if they either don't have the money to maintain a car or if they live in a place where mass transit is good enough to get around. Besides, car insurance costs only a fraction of what health insurance costs.
But while you may have a choice about driving, you don't have a choice about living. Well, actually you do but I hope that Senator Baucus isn't planning to reduce the number of uninsured by pushing more of them to lose all hope and shoot themselves.
Make no mistake about this one. The Baucus plan is so bad, that doing nothing would actually be better for the uninsured.
And it's a really bad plan. Of course he has no public option and instead favors non-profit 'co-ops' (no surprise there, we've been hearing about that for months.) But the things that really stand out are health insurance mandates (something that President Obama opposed during last year's campaign.) He backs the mandates with hefty fines for people who don't buy their own private insurance.
Of course Baucus points out that his plan includes tax credits to help people who buy their own insurance recoup costs.
How quaint. The tax credits don't even cover most of the cost of insurance, which averages about $13,000 per year for a typical family of four. Further, when do you get a tax credit? Usually when you get your income tax refund (unless of course either spouse has a court judgement of any type against them, in which case the tax credit would presumably go where refunds go now-- to their creditors. Wow, so if you were forced to declare bankruptcy because of medical costs your Baucus tax credit would go to pay your old creditors.) But even if you do get the credit, it won't be until months after you've had to start shelling out over a thousand dollars a month. And that even assumes that your family is in reasonably good health, otherwise you might be paying more-- much, much more.
The fine in the Baucus proposal for not buying insurance could run as high as $3,800 per year.
Isn't this exactly the same plan as Mittcare in Massachusetts? Require everyone to buy insurance, fine the tar out of them if they don't and maybe send them a relatively small check months or even years later to pay them back for it?
Mandates like these are terrible ideas. Many people live paycheck to paycheck and requiring them to pony up this much money is almost sadistically cruel. If someone isn't buying health insurance because they can't pay their bills now, then how can you require them to come up with over $1,000 a month more?
I know that if I and my wife didn't get insurance through our employers (who pay part of the premium) there is no way I could afford to start paying that much more every month.
I think the answer lies in Washington. Like in the case of Mitt Romney (who was worth over a quarter billion dollars when Mittcare was passed in his state) Senator Baucus is used to throwing around hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars. So he has no comprehension of how hard it would be for most people to shell out a thousand dollars a month. I mean heck, people write him campaign contributions for several times that amount all the time. Stretching your last couple of dollars to buy groceries and gambling that they won't shut off the electricity until after you get paid is so far beyond his comprehension that he has no clue that some people don't have thousands of dollars sitting in the bank they can just use to buy health insurance until the tax credit comes through and gives them a third of it back.
Supporters of such a plan liken it to automobile insurance, which is also mandatory in every state. However there is a key difference: you don't have to drive a car at all. Many people don't, especially if they either don't have the money to maintain a car or if they live in a place where mass transit is good enough to get around. Besides, car insurance costs only a fraction of what health insurance costs.
But while you may have a choice about driving, you don't have a choice about living. Well, actually you do but I hope that Senator Baucus isn't planning to reduce the number of uninsured by pushing more of them to lose all hope and shoot themselves.
Make no mistake about this one. The Baucus plan is so bad, that doing nothing would actually be better for the uninsured.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Obama administration stumbles on veterans healthcare-- but in the process demonstrates that government run health care works better than private care
This is the first time I think I've made a post in which I publically disagree with something proposed by the Obama administration. But there is a subtext which is worth pointing out as well.
The administration, after receiving a lot of flack from the American Legion and other veterans groups backed down from a proposal that they made that veterans who receive serious war wounds should use private health insurance to pay for the cost of ongoing care and treatment for those wounds. The plan, which would be an extension of a Bush administration plan that now forces veterans to rely on private insurance to pay for the treatment of non-war related illnesses and injuries, would significantly have reduced the role of the Federal Government in providing health care for veterans.
The administration had said that the government would save $540 million by the plan, but without pointing out that by shifting the burden of treatment to private insurers, those insurers would in turn have to recover their costs by boosting premiums, from their premium-payers, namely the veterans themselves.
I for one am glad that the administration has backed down on this. If anyone deserves to have the cost of their treatment paid for in full by the Federal government it is the veterans who have left limbs, eyes and other body parts strewn on battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
There is an interesting subtext here however. Given a choice between government provided and paid health care, or health care paid for by private insurance, this group of Americans didn't just prefer, but in fact demanded, the government-run and paid version.
That's not to say that there isn't a place for private health insurance within our health care system, but if a conservative organization (and the American Legion certainly is that) is ready to go all out to try and preserve government health care for their members so they wouldn't have to depend on private insurance, then maybe it isn't so bad after all, now is it?
The administration, after receiving a lot of flack from the American Legion and other veterans groups backed down from a proposal that they made that veterans who receive serious war wounds should use private health insurance to pay for the cost of ongoing care and treatment for those wounds. The plan, which would be an extension of a Bush administration plan that now forces veterans to rely on private insurance to pay for the treatment of non-war related illnesses and injuries, would significantly have reduced the role of the Federal Government in providing health care for veterans.
The administration had said that the government would save $540 million by the plan, but without pointing out that by shifting the burden of treatment to private insurers, those insurers would in turn have to recover their costs by boosting premiums, from their premium-payers, namely the veterans themselves.
I for one am glad that the administration has backed down on this. If anyone deserves to have the cost of their treatment paid for in full by the Federal government it is the veterans who have left limbs, eyes and other body parts strewn on battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
There is an interesting subtext here however. Given a choice between government provided and paid health care, or health care paid for by private insurance, this group of Americans didn't just prefer, but in fact demanded, the government-run and paid version.
That's not to say that there isn't a place for private health insurance within our health care system, but if a conservative organization (and the American Legion certainly is that) is ready to go all out to try and preserve government health care for their members so they wouldn't have to depend on private insurance, then maybe it isn't so bad after all, now is it?
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Obama health care plan is about getting people insured, not about running hospitals
In my last post, about health care, I got a critique in which the poster pointed out that the hospital that had kept an injured and uninsured woman waiting for nineteen hours was a county hospital, and then suggested that the Obama plan would put all hospitals under government control. I responded by pointing out that privately run hospitals have the same kinds of problems (I referenced, for example this post about a person who died after more than a day in the waiting room of a privately managed (though government owned) hospital.
However there is a far more fundamental misconception on the part of people who like to bash the Obama plan. The misconception is that it involves some kind of nationalization of the health care industry. It does not. There is nothing at all in the Obama plan about taking over the private hospitals and making them part of the government.
The Obama health care plan is about insurance. Right now, most hospital emergency rooms have a two tiered system for serving customers. Those who have insurance stand first in line. The uninsured are the equivalent of 'stand by,' being seen only when and if there are no insured customers waiting to be seen.
Given this reality, and the fact that there are around fifty million uninsured Americans (this is more than the population of California) the Obama health care plan is pretty basic-- it wants to make sure that everyone has access to insurance they can afford. The plan does achieve this goal by heavily subsidizing health insurance that is offered to people who might otherwise not be able to afford it-- be they too poor to be able to afford it, or be they cancer survivors or other people at high risk who might otherwise not be able to purchase insurance.
The program is voluntary for adults. It is mandatory that parents purchase insurance for their kids. There is precedent for this though-- we require drivers to purchase car insurance so they are covered against any damage they may inflict upon other drivers by their own negligence, so it is hardly irresponsible for us to require that they purchase insurance to cover their own kids (not doing so would indeed be negligent.) But under the Obama plan, if they insist they don't want any inurance, they don't have to buy any for themselves. Adults have every right to be stupid, and the Obama plan recognizes this. But they don't have the right to by their stupidity endanger other people (especially children, theirs or anyone else's.)
Incidentally, there is one other industrialized country-- Japan-- which has achieved universal coverage via private insurance with a partial government subsidy. And the Japanese have among the longest lifespans in the world, so it seems to work pretty well.
But to jump from Obama's plan to help people purchase insurance, to arguing that Senator Obama plans to take over and run private hospitals, is ridiculous and represents the kind of paranoid thinking that seems to have hijacked otherwise reasonable people on the right.
However there is a far more fundamental misconception on the part of people who like to bash the Obama plan. The misconception is that it involves some kind of nationalization of the health care industry. It does not. There is nothing at all in the Obama plan about taking over the private hospitals and making them part of the government.
The Obama health care plan is about insurance. Right now, most hospital emergency rooms have a two tiered system for serving customers. Those who have insurance stand first in line. The uninsured are the equivalent of 'stand by,' being seen only when and if there are no insured customers waiting to be seen.
Given this reality, and the fact that there are around fifty million uninsured Americans (this is more than the population of California) the Obama health care plan is pretty basic-- it wants to make sure that everyone has access to insurance they can afford. The plan does achieve this goal by heavily subsidizing health insurance that is offered to people who might otherwise not be able to afford it-- be they too poor to be able to afford it, or be they cancer survivors or other people at high risk who might otherwise not be able to purchase insurance.
The program is voluntary for adults. It is mandatory that parents purchase insurance for their kids. There is precedent for this though-- we require drivers to purchase car insurance so they are covered against any damage they may inflict upon other drivers by their own negligence, so it is hardly irresponsible for us to require that they purchase insurance to cover their own kids (not doing so would indeed be negligent.) But under the Obama plan, if they insist they don't want any inurance, they don't have to buy any for themselves. Adults have every right to be stupid, and the Obama plan recognizes this. But they don't have the right to by their stupidity endanger other people (especially children, theirs or anyone else's.)
Incidentally, there is one other industrialized country-- Japan-- which has achieved universal coverage via private insurance with a partial government subsidy. And the Japanese have among the longest lifespans in the world, so it seems to work pretty well.
But to jump from Obama's plan to help people purchase insurance, to arguing that Senator Obama plans to take over and run private hospitals, is ridiculous and represents the kind of paranoid thinking that seems to have hijacked otherwise reasonable people on the right.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
The price of no insurance, or of Scrooge-like insurance companies:DEATH
A report has come out using data gathered by the American Cancer Society showing that lack of insurance is directly correlated with an increased number of deaths in cancer patients.
Not that this is surprising, as the lack of health insurance influences everything from the decision of people to seek treatment or get screenings that they may have a hard time paying for, to the decisions by hospitals and healthcare providers not to provide more than the minimum amount of care they can knowing they may not get paid for it.
ATLANTA: Uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years as those with private coverage, according to the first national study of its kind and one that sheds light on troubling medical care obstacles.
People without insurance are less likely to get recommended cancer screening tests, the study found, confirming earlier research. And when these patients finally do get diagnosed, their cancer is likely to have spread.
The new research, analyzing information from 1,500 U.S. hospitals that provide cancer care, is being published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
It is true that only about four percent of cancer deaths actually occur in patients who lack health insurance (whereas the overall percentage of Americans without health insurance is around sixteen percent and rising) but that figure is misleading since the vast majority of fatal cancers occur in people over 65, all of whom are covered by medicare.
Of course, as we tragically saw in the case last week of Natalie Sarkisyan*, a seventeen year old who died needing a liver transplant even though one was available because her HMO, Cigna health, refused to authorize payment until the case hit the national media and by then it was too late, even having health insurance may not save you if the insurance company simply decides that they'd rather have you dead than cut the check.
Now, there are those who will continue to advocate that we should have the system we have now, where people can 'choose' to buy (or not to buy) health insurance. They conveniently ignore the fact that most people who don't have health insurance are not without it because they don't want it, but because they can't afford it. It is still true that for those who can afford it, there are more high tech, specialized treatments available in America than elsewhere. For those who can't, it might as well be a trip to the moon. The truth is, we have no real options available for the uninsured to get adequate treatment, other than don't get the treatment, or go far into debt to pay for it (so far that most hospitals, when they see that a patient is uninsured, will automatically 'fast-track' them out of the hospital with the minimum treatment they can, knowing that the large majority of them won't be able to pay.)
However, you may be one of those who will defend to the hilt the present system and say that the choice not to buy insurance, for whatever it's drawbacks are, outweighs all other alternatives.
Fine. But be advised that we now have hard data, in the form of this cancer study, indicating that one of those drawbacks is the increased numbers of deaths in Americans without insurance. If the death of other Americans is an acceptable price for maintaining the system we have now, then go ahead and advocate for it. But don't pretend that it is a benign system, or is something that it is not.
*-- On a personal note, I might add that I am an organ donor, should that ever occur. But the circumstances surrounding the Sarkisyan case cause me to wonder whether I should be, or how I should discuss organ donation with my kids. I've always felt that if I (or one of my kids, one of whom has said she would be willing to be a donor) were ever in a position in which my organs could save a life, then to do so. But I feel uncomfortable now, given what happened in this case, knowing that my organs could simply become available, not based on need but based on who is insured and whether their insurance company would pay. That would be one criterion I would absolutely NOT want used to determine who received my liver or other organs, or those of my family members.
Not that this is surprising, as the lack of health insurance influences everything from the decision of people to seek treatment or get screenings that they may have a hard time paying for, to the decisions by hospitals and healthcare providers not to provide more than the minimum amount of care they can knowing they may not get paid for it.
ATLANTA: Uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years as those with private coverage, according to the first national study of its kind and one that sheds light on troubling medical care obstacles.
People without insurance are less likely to get recommended cancer screening tests, the study found, confirming earlier research. And when these patients finally do get diagnosed, their cancer is likely to have spread.
The new research, analyzing information from 1,500 U.S. hospitals that provide cancer care, is being published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
It is true that only about four percent of cancer deaths actually occur in patients who lack health insurance (whereas the overall percentage of Americans without health insurance is around sixteen percent and rising) but that figure is misleading since the vast majority of fatal cancers occur in people over 65, all of whom are covered by medicare.
Of course, as we tragically saw in the case last week of Natalie Sarkisyan*, a seventeen year old who died needing a liver transplant even though one was available because her HMO, Cigna health, refused to authorize payment until the case hit the national media and by then it was too late, even having health insurance may not save you if the insurance company simply decides that they'd rather have you dead than cut the check.
Now, there are those who will continue to advocate that we should have the system we have now, where people can 'choose' to buy (or not to buy) health insurance. They conveniently ignore the fact that most people who don't have health insurance are not without it because they don't want it, but because they can't afford it. It is still true that for those who can afford it, there are more high tech, specialized treatments available in America than elsewhere. For those who can't, it might as well be a trip to the moon. The truth is, we have no real options available for the uninsured to get adequate treatment, other than don't get the treatment, or go far into debt to pay for it (so far that most hospitals, when they see that a patient is uninsured, will automatically 'fast-track' them out of the hospital with the minimum treatment they can, knowing that the large majority of them won't be able to pay.)
However, you may be one of those who will defend to the hilt the present system and say that the choice not to buy insurance, for whatever it's drawbacks are, outweighs all other alternatives.
Fine. But be advised that we now have hard data, in the form of this cancer study, indicating that one of those drawbacks is the increased numbers of deaths in Americans without insurance. If the death of other Americans is an acceptable price for maintaining the system we have now, then go ahead and advocate for it. But don't pretend that it is a benign system, or is something that it is not.
*-- On a personal note, I might add that I am an organ donor, should that ever occur. But the circumstances surrounding the Sarkisyan case cause me to wonder whether I should be, or how I should discuss organ donation with my kids. I've always felt that if I (or one of my kids, one of whom has said she would be willing to be a donor) were ever in a position in which my organs could save a life, then to do so. But I feel uncomfortable now, given what happened in this case, knowing that my organs could simply become available, not based on need but based on who is insured and whether their insurance company would pay. That would be one criterion I would absolutely NOT want used to determine who received my liver or other organs, or those of my family members.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
A critical component to any health care reform plan: Mental Health Coverage.
I am, like everybody else, glad that the hostage situation involving a mentally ill man at Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire headquarters is over, and that it ended without any bloodshed. New Hampshire law enforcement officials did a superb job of bringing it to a peaceful resolution, and the Senator was right not to negotiate with the man, identified as Leland Eisenberg. Eisenberg had asked to speak to Clinton about the difficulty he was having with getting treatment for his mental health issues.
However, while Senator Clinton was right not to negotiate or accede to the demands of someone who was holding hostages, now that it is over we must pressure her or whoever the Democratic nominee is (and I am still supporting Bill Richardson, for the record) to include mental health in any comprehensive healthcare reform bill. The brain is an organ in the body, and it is just as susceptible to disease and dysfunction as any other organ in the body. Yet people are far more likely to get fully covered by their insurance plans for treatment for heart disease, digestive disease, bone disease or pretty much any other part of the body than they are to get fully covered for treatment for mental disease.
The health insurance industry has gone to great lengths to avoid treating mental illness with the seriousness it should be, of course for the reason that it is an easy way to cut corners. Patients who have cancer, AIDS, diabetes or other ailments can sometimes embarrass the health insurance industry by speaking out about their problems in the national or local media. Mental health patients however cannot as easily speak out if they get screwed over by their insurance providers. One reason is because of the stigma still attached to mental illness, a second is that the glare of the spotlight and the publicity may in fact be exactly what they don't need if they are suffering from mental illness, and the third and most damning reason why they cannot speak out is because just by virtue of their having a mental illness, many people will consider them 'crazy' and won't take them seriously, including many in the media.
Yet mental illness strikes millions of Americans every year, ranging from mild depression to completely disabling conditions that destroy otherwise healthy human beings.
Now that mental illness is in fact recognized as a real illness (and it took a couple of generations just to get that far, which it did thanks to biochemistry and some tireless advocates) the health insurance industry has changed their tactics, but not their goal of trying to dodge coverage for mental health treatment. At the moment they are opposing H.R. 1424, the 'Mental Health Parity Act of 2007,' with the goal of preventing passage of a bill that will require insurance companies to cover treatment for a number of well-defined and recognized mental health disorders.
I once wrote a post about 'favors' that Arizona legislators receive from a variety of lobbyists and while researching that post I discovered that if not openly allied, the insurance industry has been getting some help with their dirty work from the Church of Scientology (a cult that opposes clinical treatment for mental health care) I wrote:
Others have been wined and dined by a group calling itself by the appealing sounding name, 'Citizens' Commission on Human Rights.' A check of the group's web site reveals something less appealing. They are affiliated with the Church of Scientology. If you don't know who the Church of Scientology is, they are the group that Tom Cruise belongs to, that was founded by former science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and believes in 'dianetics,' a medicine-free path to good health, and in particular to good mental health (and at a higher level to a release of untapped mental energy). That is the fundamental cornerstone of their belief system, so by necessity they also believe in all sorts of conspiracy plots, mostly involving psychiatrists and the mental health system. By forming CCHR, they have moved beyond the fringe and have tried to get their views accepted by people who make laws, not just in Arizona but around the country. In fact, this is a strange case of where big business and a loony religious cult have come together to shaft the little guy (as represented by a person who has a mental illness and needs affordable treatment that works). For a long time, health insurance companies have not reimbursed mental health providers or reimbursed them at much lower rates than other health care providers. Once their justification for doing so, that mental conditions were in general not diseases but purely were voluntary conditions or conditions which were produced by voluntary actions (such as drug or alcohol abuse), was proven false by biochemical researchers, they had to change their reasoning. In fact, the brain is just like any other organ in the body, subject to disease (as evidenced by chemical imbalance, even in otherwise healthy people) and psychiatrists (my father was one before he died fifteen years ago) are simply trained medical doctors who went to the same medical schools as other doctors, and specialized in the treatment of diseases of this organ. Because scientologists believe as an absolute truth and matter of religious conviction that mental illness is something that can be treated by their own (non-medical) methods, much like the old view of it, the insurance industry, while still taking mental illness less seriously (in terms of payment) than they do other kinds of illnesses, have been able to step back and let the religious cult do their dirty work for them. In fact, I have to wonder why CCHR has been so well funded. I know that Tom Cruise gets a pretty good paycheck and undoubtedly donates quite a bit of it, but the rate that this organization (CCHR) has grown is very suggestive that they may be getting some serious behind the scenes money, and if so.... well I can suggest a conspiracy theory just as well as they can.
Ultimately it does not matter what the justification is, while I do not agree with Mr. Eisenberg's methods, he does have a valid point that many people who need it don't get the mental health care they need. With the likelihood that the next President will include health care reform as part of his or her agenda, we must make it clear that mental health is just as important, if not more important, than making sure that we cover health problems involving other parts of the body.
However, while Senator Clinton was right not to negotiate or accede to the demands of someone who was holding hostages, now that it is over we must pressure her or whoever the Democratic nominee is (and I am still supporting Bill Richardson, for the record) to include mental health in any comprehensive healthcare reform bill. The brain is an organ in the body, and it is just as susceptible to disease and dysfunction as any other organ in the body. Yet people are far more likely to get fully covered by their insurance plans for treatment for heart disease, digestive disease, bone disease or pretty much any other part of the body than they are to get fully covered for treatment for mental disease.
The health insurance industry has gone to great lengths to avoid treating mental illness with the seriousness it should be, of course for the reason that it is an easy way to cut corners. Patients who have cancer, AIDS, diabetes or other ailments can sometimes embarrass the health insurance industry by speaking out about their problems in the national or local media. Mental health patients however cannot as easily speak out if they get screwed over by their insurance providers. One reason is because of the stigma still attached to mental illness, a second is that the glare of the spotlight and the publicity may in fact be exactly what they don't need if they are suffering from mental illness, and the third and most damning reason why they cannot speak out is because just by virtue of their having a mental illness, many people will consider them 'crazy' and won't take them seriously, including many in the media.
Yet mental illness strikes millions of Americans every year, ranging from mild depression to completely disabling conditions that destroy otherwise healthy human beings.
Now that mental illness is in fact recognized as a real illness (and it took a couple of generations just to get that far, which it did thanks to biochemistry and some tireless advocates) the health insurance industry has changed their tactics, but not their goal of trying to dodge coverage for mental health treatment. At the moment they are opposing H.R. 1424, the 'Mental Health Parity Act of 2007,' with the goal of preventing passage of a bill that will require insurance companies to cover treatment for a number of well-defined and recognized mental health disorders.
I once wrote a post about 'favors' that Arizona legislators receive from a variety of lobbyists and while researching that post I discovered that if not openly allied, the insurance industry has been getting some help with their dirty work from the Church of Scientology (a cult that opposes clinical treatment for mental health care) I wrote:
Others have been wined and dined by a group calling itself by the appealing sounding name, 'Citizens' Commission on Human Rights.' A check of the group's web site reveals something less appealing. They are affiliated with the Church of Scientology. If you don't know who the Church of Scientology is, they are the group that Tom Cruise belongs to, that was founded by former science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and believes in 'dianetics,' a medicine-free path to good health, and in particular to good mental health (and at a higher level to a release of untapped mental energy). That is the fundamental cornerstone of their belief system, so by necessity they also believe in all sorts of conspiracy plots, mostly involving psychiatrists and the mental health system. By forming CCHR, they have moved beyond the fringe and have tried to get their views accepted by people who make laws, not just in Arizona but around the country. In fact, this is a strange case of where big business and a loony religious cult have come together to shaft the little guy (as represented by a person who has a mental illness and needs affordable treatment that works). For a long time, health insurance companies have not reimbursed mental health providers or reimbursed them at much lower rates than other health care providers. Once their justification for doing so, that mental conditions were in general not diseases but purely were voluntary conditions or conditions which were produced by voluntary actions (such as drug or alcohol abuse), was proven false by biochemical researchers, they had to change their reasoning. In fact, the brain is just like any other organ in the body, subject to disease (as evidenced by chemical imbalance, even in otherwise healthy people) and psychiatrists (my father was one before he died fifteen years ago) are simply trained medical doctors who went to the same medical schools as other doctors, and specialized in the treatment of diseases of this organ. Because scientologists believe as an absolute truth and matter of religious conviction that mental illness is something that can be treated by their own (non-medical) methods, much like the old view of it, the insurance industry, while still taking mental illness less seriously (in terms of payment) than they do other kinds of illnesses, have been able to step back and let the religious cult do their dirty work for them. In fact, I have to wonder why CCHR has been so well funded. I know that Tom Cruise gets a pretty good paycheck and undoubtedly donates quite a bit of it, but the rate that this organization (CCHR) has grown is very suggestive that they may be getting some serious behind the scenes money, and if so.... well I can suggest a conspiracy theory just as well as they can.
Ultimately it does not matter what the justification is, while I do not agree with Mr. Eisenberg's methods, he does have a valid point that many people who need it don't get the mental health care they need. With the likelihood that the next President will include health care reform as part of his or her agenda, we must make it clear that mental health is just as important, if not more important, than making sure that we cover health problems involving other parts of the body.
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