Comments on: Federal mental health insurance parity

By: Sasha08

Sasha08 — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 11:27:32 +0000

Many health plans discriminate against millions of Americans suffering from mental disorders, limiting mental health and substance abuse healthcare by imposing lower day and visit limits, higher deductibles and deductibles and lower annual expenditure ceilings and duration. Clinical point of view, insurance is a huge obstacle. Psychiatry in general there are limits to the cover, which could impede patient care. Insurance Company, which does not limit the number of days to treat a diabetic can ask someone in a mental illness pay out-of-pocket days are not covered. blue-cross-blue-shield

By: MattC

MattC — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:22:46 +0000

I fought hard to get insurance coverage for my autistic kid. I thought it was great they finally added mental health parity to the federal law.

By: Twitted by chokha

Twitted by chokha — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:14:46 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by chokha [...]

By: Another Voice

Another Voice — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:22:17 +0000

I went over to the above mentioned blog, nothing was being posted about “Federal Mental Health Insurance Parity”. So there was no movement of any debate as Harry indicated. There is plenty of gripping about LB/RB and that was about all.

By: Sullivan

Sullivan — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:06:37 +0000

“If anybody’s having trouble commenting here please come on over to”

Two more solutions are

a) email me with your comments (sullivansjourney@gmail.com)
b) email me with your request for an account if you are having problems creating one.

By: Harry

Harry — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:56:43 +0000

If anybody’s having trouble commenting here please come on over to

http://inresponsetolbrb.blogspot.com/

That’s where we’ve all gone to debate this issue…

By: rajensen088

rajensen088 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:13:34 +0000

Insurance Companies simply don’t want to pay for expensive treatments and will do anything to avoid paying. The Prudential Insurance Co. denied payment of speech and language therapy and other therapies my daughter was receiving at a pediatric rehabilitation hospital. The claimed at the time (1989) that the policy doesn’t cover treatement for mental illness. Dr. Edward Ritvo of UCLA and an ass’t editor of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders brought a lawsuit in California that he won with the court ruling that ‘Autism’ was not a mental illness. I wrote to Dr. Ritvo and he sent me the entire court ruling which I used in confronting Prudential.

Prudential then wrote back with a new exclusion, ‘Autism’ treatment is educational hence the responsibility of the local school sytem (my daughter wasn’t even in school at the time).

Autism is now in a catch-22 situation, insurance companies can cite the California ruling and claim that autism is not a mental illness and therefore is not covered under any mental health parity law.

Currently discrimination can only end on a state by state basis and Autism Speaks has taken the lead in testifying before state legislatures and funded an advertising campaign to end discrimination against autistic treatement on a national basis:

http://www.youtube.com/autismvotes

Only national legislature will ensure this discrimination ends. Call Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid at the number in the 30 second advertisment now being shown nationally in the US.