Mental
Health Association in New York State, Inc. |
Friday Fax from Albany
Timothy’s Law on Tour II: With overwhelming success in raising public awareness through a media tour of Central and Western New York last year, the effort to enact Timothy’s Law once again hit the road this week with a whirlwind tour of the Greater Hudson Valley region. The now well known and loved Tom O’Clair, and MHANYS’ lesser known Director of Public Policy, Michael Seereiter struggled with maps and unfamiliar territory on Monday, President’s Day, to make appointments with the editorial boards of the Middletown Times Herald Record and the Journal News of Westchester, as well as a TV interview with the Kingston, NY based RNN-TV before heading back to Albany. In Kingston, the traveling crew was joined by John Brillon, a Peer Advocate and Board member of the MHA of Ulster. Displaying incredible courage and strength to once again recount his family’s horrific story, one reporter was noticeably shaken as Tom O’Clair explained the circumstances that led to Timothy’s suicide. Coverage of the meetings and TV interview include an article published on Tuesday in the Times Herald Record of Middletown, which follows in the ‘In the News’ section, and the interview with RNN ran on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. An article from the Journal News of Westchester is expected shortly and will be shared in a future edition of the Friday Fax from Albany. MHANYS’ and Samaritans Legislative Conference: Information related to this year’s Legislative Conference follows. Please don’t forget that when signing up, you should also be making appointments to meet with your legislators. MHANYS
and Samaritans Suicide Prevention Center
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| Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver | (518) 455-3791 |
| Assembly Ways & Means Chair Herman Farrell | (518) 455-5491 |
| Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno | (518) 455-3191 |
| Senate Finance Chair Owen Johnson | (518) 455-3411 |
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In the News:
Timothy's
Law awaits Legislature. By Beth Quinn
Times Herald-Record, February 17, 2004
It was Timothy's mother who found him hanging in the closet.
He was 12 years old.
Timothy O'Clair's parents had battled the system for five years to get their child treated for clinical depression. Their efforts were stymied by limits on mental-health coverage in their insurance policy.
In the end, they lost. On March 16, 2001, the Schenectady boy put a rope around his neck and tossed it over a metal rod in his closet.
Despite losing the battle for their own son, Tom and Donna O'Clair are now trying to win the war on behalf of all New Yorkers who suffer from mental illness. They're traveling the state advocating the passage of a law named after their youngest child – Timothy's Law.
"This law would require health insurers to give the same coverage for mental illness as they do for physical illness," said Tom O'Clair during an editorial board meeting yesterday at the Times Herald-Record. New York insurers are now required to cover only 20 outpatient visits and 30 days' hospitalization annually for treatment of mental illness.
But for people like Timothy, that's not even close to adequate, said Michael Seereiter, director of public policy for the state Mental Health Association.
Timothy needed weekly outpatient visits and periodic long-term hospitalization. Instead, his treatment was rationed.
His parents paid out of pocket when they could scrape the money together. At one point, they gave up custody of their child so he could qualify for Medicaid coverage.
"But that led to a terrible foster care situation," said O'Clair. "What kind of system forces parents to give up a child just to get him the proper care? Would we accept that if a child needed treatment for cancer?"
Mental health advocates statewide have been fighting to end this kind of discrimination against the mentally ill for nearly two decades.
Last year, they came close. Timothy's Law was approved in the Assembly but never came up for a vote in the Senate. The O'Clairs, along with advocacy organizations statewide, are trying again this year.
States elsewhere have gradually adopted similar laws, said Seereiter. There are now 33 states that require health insurance coverage for mental illness and substance abuse comparable to physical illness.
A study of those states shows that the cost to New Yorkers would be $1.26 per person per month in premium costs.
While the Assembly is expected to approve the law again this year, advocates are pressuring Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno to allow its passage in the Senate.
In the past, Bruno has spoken out against Timothy's Law, claiming that its broad language would drive up insurance costs for everyone. But he does not have numbers to dispute the $1.26 figure.
A spokesman for Bruno said last week that the bill's language might be negotiated with the Assembly this year.
"Sen. Bruno has raised some concerns about bottom-line costs," said his spokesman, Mark Hansen. "But it's something he'd like to work out. He's hopeful it can happen."
For more information about Timothy's Law, go to www.timothyslaw.org. The Web site is maintained by Timothy's older brother, Christopher.
Fighting
For Life
WSTM-TV Syracuse, February 12, 2004
He was a fun-loving teenager from Phoenix who was voted by his high school
senior class as the most optimistic student.
But last spring, Josh Graham committed suicide by hanging himself. His mother, Debra Graham, says she saw the signs everywhere, signs Josh made himself. Drawings that decorate his empty room, especially one showing a man putting his head into a noose, illustrate another side of Josh thast few saw.
"I could feel real intense pain from these drawings...one [is] telling me that this is someone that almost is asking to die by a hangman's noose," Debra said.
Even before Josh's first suicide attempt, Debra says she did all she could to get him help. But she says her health insurance, like most policies, limit mental health coverage to 30 days of inpatient care and 20 days of outpatient care. Debra feels that's why doctors refused to take Josh as a patient.
"I fought the battle alone. I couldn't even get a doctor to help my child. That's very hard to accept," she said.
Turning her grief into inspiration, Debra has joined a growing movement of families of suicide victims to change insurance law in New York State, by pushing for the passage of "Timothy's Law." The bill is named after Timothy O'Clair, an Albany area boy who killed himself at the age of 12.
Simply put, Timothy's Law would force health insurance companies to give mental illness the same coverage as physical illness. Timothy's father, Tom O'Clair, is leading the fight for mental health parity.
"Many mental health issues are actually physical health issues with chemical imbalances in the brain and so forth," said O'Clair.
Last year, Timothy's Law passed the State Assembly overwhelmingly, in part because one of its biggest supporters is Miss New York State herself, Jessica Lynch.
"Depression is something I've suffered from since I was nine years old, and I had a very similar experience to the O'Clair's. I myself was in a hospital and was kicked out after 30 days," Lynch said.
But since passing the Assembly, Timothy's Law has been stalled in the state Senate. Paul Macielak, head of the state Health Plan Association, says the simple answer is cost.
Macielak says supporters of Timothy's Law are wrong when they claim mental health parity will add only $1.26 to each person's health insurance premium. He says it will add hundreds of millions of dollars statewide to an already costly health care system.
Macielak says putting the name of a suicide victim to a health mandate is wrong.
"It's just become a trend here in Albany and it adds emotion to situations where we really ought to be looking at science, the cost and the benefits," he said.
Senator Jim Seward, of Binghamton, heads the Senate Insurance Committee. He agrees with the Health Plan Association.
"We could have the Cadillac of health insurance policies that are required by the state of New York that no one can afford. Then what good is it?" said Seward.
The question of how good it would be is a question that rings hollow every time Debra looks at her son's self-portrait.
"Josh will never go to college, he'll never be a dad, I'll never have grandchildren from him. You lose. So many people lose when someone's life is taken through suicide," she said.
Timothy's Law is set to be reintroduced in the Assembly later this month where it's expected to pass overwhelmingly. The real battle will occur in the Senate where it stalled last year.
Court
Upholds Judges' Right to Compel Medication. By Marc Santora
New York Times, February 18, 2004
ALBANY, Feb. 17 - The state's highest court on Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of a law that gives judges authority to force mentally ill people to comply with treatment.
The statute, commonly known as Kendra's Law, was originally passed in 1999 after Kendra Webdale, 32, was killed when she was thrown in front of an oncoming subway train. The assailant was a man who had been found to be schizophrenic and prone to violence, but who did not take his antipsychotic medicine.
By passing the law, New York joined nearly 40 other states that had similar statutes, the state's Court of Appeals said in its decision.
Lawyers for a mental patient, identified only as K. L., had challenged the law on the ground that it violated the constitutional guarantee of due process because it did not require that a court declare a psychiatric patient mentally incapacitated - an established and substantial legal threshold - before forcing the patient into treatment.
They also argued that it was unconstitutional to allow patients who refused to take their medicine to be detained for up to 72 hours for evaluation without a hearing.
K. L. suffered from a bipolar type of schizo-affective disorder, had a history of hospitalization, at times refused to cooperate with treatment and was occasionally aggressive with family members.
The case was the first challenge of the law to reach the state's top court, which ruled unanimously, 6-0, to uphold the statute.
"The state's interest in immediately removing from the streets noncompliant patients previously found to be, as a result of their noncompliance, at risk of a relapse or deterioration likely to result in serious harm to themselves or others is quite strong," Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye wrote in the decision.
Dennis
B. Feld, a court-appointed lawyer for K. L., said he did not want to abolish
Kendra's Law but only wanted to assure additional rights for the mentally
ill.
The court said, however, that requiring a court declaration of incapacity
"would have the effect of eviscerating the legislation."
As a lawyer for the Mental Hygiene Legal Service, which is part of the court system, Mr. Feld said he and his associates represented the majority of the mentally ill people in New York affected by the law.
Mr. Feld estimated that roughly 1,500 to 2,000 people are now under court order to receive outpatient treatment. "The numbers are increasing," he said. Altogether, since the law was passed, courts have ordered that more than 3,000 people receive treatment, said Roger F. Klingman, a spokesman for the State Office of Mental Health.
Under the law, a family member or caseworker could seek a court order requiring treatment. A court hearing must meet a set of criteria established under the law before what is known as an assisted outpatient treatment order can be issued. The appeals court found that the "statute's procedure for obtaining an A.O.T. order provides all the process that is constitutionally due."
Mr.
Feld argued that patients should be granted a hearing before being detained,
but the speed with which a mentally ill person could be removed from the
general public was a central reason why Ms. Webdale's family lobbied so
hard to have the law passed.
"A preremoval hearing would significantly reduce the speed with which
the patient can be evaluated and then receive the care and treatment which
physicians have reason to believe that the patient may need," the
court ruled.
Until
next time, we remain,
Working to ensure available and accessible
mental health services for all New Yorkers