one bright spot in the whole messy bailout plan
Bailout Provision Provides Equal Coverage for Mental and Physical Ailments: Robert Pear, NY Times: "More than one-third of all Americans will soon receive better insurance coverage for mental health treatments because of a new law that, for the first time, requires equal coverage of mental and physical illnesses. The requirement, included in the economic bailout bill that President Bush signed on Friday, is the result of 12 years of passionate advocacy by friends and relatives of people with mental illness and addiction disorders. They described the new law as a milestone in the quest for civil rights, an effort to end insurance discrimination and to reduce the stigma of mental illness."
Alas, these changes will not take effect until the beginning of 2010. Still, that's only a little more than a year away, and this legislation had support from both sides of the aisle: Insurers and employers, which had resisted earlier versions of the legislation, came to the table in 2004 at the request of Mr. Domenici and Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming.
Each side had, in effect, a veto over the language of any bill. Insurers and employers, seeing broad bipartisan support for the goal in both houses of Congress, decided to work with mental health advocates. Each side gained the other's trust.
If only we could get that kind of multilateral cooperation on more issues!
Alas, these changes will not take effect until the beginning of 2010. Still, that's only a little more than a year away, and this legislation had support from both sides of the aisle: Insurers and employers, which had resisted earlier versions of the legislation, came to the table in 2004 at the request of Mr. Domenici and Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming.
Each side had, in effect, a veto over the language of any bill. Insurers and employers, seeing broad bipartisan support for the goal in both houses of Congress, decided to work with mental health advocates. Each side gained the other's trust.
If only we could get that kind of multilateral cooperation on more issues!