Tonight I was HIGHLY pleased to read the following article located here at CNN.com:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Talk about going out with a win.
Sen. Pete Domenici has fought for mental health treatment parity in insurance plans.Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, has spent years fighting for legislation that would require insurance plans to treat mental health patients on par with those who have physical ailments. No more higher copays or deductibles for the mental health treatments. No more limits on visits to the doctor that differ from the caps for other patients.
Domenici announced a year ago that he suffers from a progressive form of dementia and would not seek a seventh term. He leaves office at the end of this year. One of his final votes was on the mental health legislation he fought so hard for over the years.
The mental health protections are part of a massive bill designed to help the economy that was passed by the House Friday and signed by President Bush.
Domenici has a daughter diagnosed with atypical schizophrenia. He got involved in the parity issue after joining a National Alliance on Mental Illness support group nearly 20 years ago. On his way home from work, he and his wife, Nancy, would meet with other parents of children with mental health problems.
"The first real understanding of how broad the problem was came from those meetings where I met with mothers and fathers who had children who were mentally ill, and they were going bankrupt because they couldn't pay the health bills, or their children were in jails instead of hospitals," Domenici said.
He said perceptions about the ability to treat mental health problems have changed greatly over the years, but coverage has also become an expensive proposition. So, he and others, such as the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minnesota, began pushing for health insurance parity. Those who would have to bear most of the expense offered the most resistance.
"Those who stood to lose fought hard and that was principally insurance companies and businesses," Domenici said.
Employers and insurers were concerned that legislation would have required plans to cover a "telephone book" of conditions, raising costs beyond what companies and their workers could afford and potentially negating companies' ability to offer any health coverage at all.
The legislation does not mandate that group health plans cover mental health or addiction treatment, only that when plans do so, the coverage must be equitable to other medical coverage.
The insurance industry is now a strong supporter of the parity legislation.
In 1996, Sens. Wellstone and Domenici won passage of a law banning insurance plans that offer mental health coverage from setting lower annual and lifetime spending limits for mental treatments than for physical ailments.
The pair again teamed up in 2001 on a predecessor to the legislation now before the House. After Wellstone was killed in a plane crash in 2002, Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, and Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, took on larger roles in getting a bill passed in the Senate.
The requirement for equal treatment in insurance coverage would apply to health plans that cover more than 50 employees -- potentially reaching 113 million people nationwide.
Health officials contend that equal protections for mental health conditions would lead to a healthier, more productive work force.
"There's a phenomenon ... where you've got a psychiatric illness and you're able to get around but you can't do your work at the same quality you did before," said Dr. Nada Stotland, president of the American Psychiatric Association.
"Many workers today are in the service industry. If a person on the other end of the line is depressed, they may have shown up to work and they may be present, but they will not necessarily make us happy about the company that we're calling. They'll be slow, unhappy and maybe irritable, and their powers of concentration won't be good. So, more and more companies want to see their employees treated."
Overall, the parity legislation is expected to cost the federal government about $3.4 billion over 10 years. That's because employers will have more health expenses that they can deduct from their income taxes.
As stated in a previous post, I am going to start talking about one thing that is bothering me to death which is weight. I want to just get it out on the table and talk about it and then do something about it. I know I will be posting how I'm doing in losing weight at times and I don't want this to turn into a weight blog.
As we all know it's easier to have just one blog. I really don't want another one because I want to keep all of my thoughts and feelings in one place, but I don't want to bore my readers either.
So, should I start another blog just for my weight or would you mind if I blog about it here?
Thanks ya'll!
I found a site called PhotoFunia that is really a lot of fun. You don't need to register and you can use all of the templates by uploading all of the pictures that you want in order to create really cool effects. Below are some pictures of my daughter and myself.
I have now officially moved to my new and permanent home. I exported my old blog, imported it to this one, took out all references to the old blog and here we are. The process seemed never-ending, but it is now complete and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The grass always looks greener on the other side. I was tired of Blogger and tried other sites and here I am full-circle again. I appreciate Blogger much more and think it's the best blogging tool out there so far.
If you have me on your blogroll, please delete the reference to my old blog and replace it with this new address. I'm going to delete my old blog tonight after writing this post.
I like the look of this blog better as well. Of course I got the template at Suck My Lolly. Check her out, she has great templates there. I've decided to keep it simple in the code so that I can change out the template as I like. It's fun to use different designs from time to time.
Oh, it's wonderful to be back in the blogging world again. I have a lot to say and will be posting as time allows.
*hugs* to everyone!
