Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007

I haven't talked about the problems we've had with our health coverage and N's anorexia. Our insurance isn't good about covering his anorexia. Many insurance companies won't cover anorexia because they view it as purely "psychological" even though a decade's worth of research is proving that anorexia's origins are actually biological (though there are emotional/psychological repercussions). We're lucky because our out-of-pocket costs, though costly, won't break us. We haven't had to consider inpatient services or other very expensive treatments because N is doing well with out-patient therapy. But many other families aren't as lucky and the costs are huge.

Anyway, on Wednesday the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007 is coming up for debate in the house. It is not a perfect bill, but it makes great strides in acknowledging that many mental illnesses are indeed medically based and merit similar coverage. Paul Wellstone initiated this legislation (before his death from a plane crash) because of a little girl that died from anorexia because her insurance would not cover her treatment. That little girl could have been N. I have seen the research and can also tell you that N did not choose this disease. He wants to get better just like we want him to.

If you are comfortable supporting this legislation, would you please contact your representative and tell them to support the passage of this bill? I've included information about the bill below and links to your representatives.

Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:hr1424:

Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007 - Amends the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), the Public Health Service Act, and the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit treatment limits or the imposition of financial requirements on mental health and substance-related disorder benefits in group health plans which are not similarly imposed on substantially all medical and surgical benefits in any category of items or services under such plans.

Click here to contact your rep: http://www.house.gov/