Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007

Floor Speech

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I thank my colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this long overdue bipartisan legislation, and I want to commend and thank our colleagues, PATRICK KENNEDY and JIM RAMSTAD, for their leadership, their passion, and their perseverance on this very important issue that is so important to millions of Americans around this country.

Last year, they traveled across this great land, holding a series of field hearings, listening to Americans in communities across the Nation, people from every walk of life. I had the privilege of hosting one of those hearings in my congressional district. The message from that hearing, as with the other hearings from around the country, was very clear, Congress needs to end insurance discrimination in mental health care. Both common sense and simple fairness require that mental health diseases be treated on an equal footing with other health conditions.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 26 percent of Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year, and approximately 6 percent of our fellow Americans suffer from serious mental illness. Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability for individuals between the ages of 15 and 44. The good news is the science tells us that treatment works. The sad truth is that, for most Americans, health insurance coverage does not now cover the full range of their needs.

We know that for years, for years, employer-provided health care set stricter treatment limits and imposed higher out-of-pocket costs for mental health care. Congress took an important step in 1996 to correct that inequity through the Mental Health Parity Act. But problems remain, and that is the reason we have this very important legislation before us, because insurance companies were setting rigid, arbitrary caps on how they cover mental health. This legislation will finally stop those practices.

Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress have good health care coverage and mental health coverage. Let's give the same thing to the American people.

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