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May 16, 2006 MANY THANKS TO THOSE WHO CALLED U.S. SENATORS IN OPPOSITION TO HEALTH INSURANCE MARKETPLACE MODERNIZATION ACT, S.1955: Following is the National Mental Health Association's update on this issue: Insurance Bill Defeated in Senate, Budget Stalled in House Grassroots Efforts Preserve Parity Laws Thanks to a tremendous advocacy effort by NMHA, its affiliates and numerous coalition partners, on May 11, the Senate defeated the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization Act (HIMMA, S.1955) by a vote of 55-43. Sixty votes were needed to end debate and clear the way for the bill's passage. Upon losing this key vote, Majority Leader Frist pulled the legislation from the Senate floor. Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) were the only Democrats to vote for S.1955, and Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) was the only Republican to vote against the bill. Proponents of S.1955 claimed that their bill was the solution to the vexing problem of health insurance affordability for small employers. This claim could not have been farther from the truth. S.1955 would have overridden over 1,000 state health insurance laws that currently protect consumers—including mental health parity and mandate laws-not only in the small group market but also in the large group and individual markets. S.1955 would have taken these critical protections away from individuals who already have comprehensive, affordable health insurance. S.1955 also would have caused insurance premium costs to rise for many—particularly businesses employing individuals who have more than minimal healthcare needs—by preempting state laws governing premium-setting. Even though S.1955 sponsor Senator Enzi (R-WY) made a last ditch effort to gain support for his bill by modifying controversial provisions, the measure would still have allowed insurers to charge up to 3 times more for needier individuals based on age, past insurance claims and health status, and up to 5 times more on all other factors. This would have driven up costs for businesses that employ an individual with a chronic condition, an older worker, a woman of child-bearing years, or a parent with a sick child. NMHA thanks all of the affiliates who worked tirelessly to spread the word about the dangers of S.1955 through their advocacy networks, local media and Senators. Your voices were extremely effective. Budget Update Thanks to your efforts and those of several moderate Republicans, House leaders have continued to defer a vote on a budget resolution. A group of House moderate Republicans, led by Reps. Mike Castle (R-DE) and Nancy Johnson (R-CT), have been successful, thus far, in holding the line for an increase of $7 billion for public health, education and training programs. In March, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a similar $7 billion increase (the [Sens.] Specter-Harkin amendment). It is critical that advocates continue to weigh in with their Representatives and urge them to support an increase of $7 billion in the Budget Resolution for public health, education and training programs. Without this increase, Congress will not be able to restore the $4 billion cut from these accounts in the Administration's budget, including a 4 percent cut in mental health funding at SAMHSA. Your calls will help moderates continue to stand up to the House leadership and support the $7 billion increase. 6TH ANNUAL ORANGE COUNTY MENTAL HEALTH CONFERENCE: On June 23rd, the 6th Annual Orange County Mental Health Conference will take place in Goshen, NY. This year’s event will focus on “Wellness Management and Personal Recovery,” featuring Josh Koerner, Executive Director of Choice of New Rochelle as the keynote speaker. In addition, there will be 6 additional informative workshops and panel discussions. This event, scheduled for Friday, June 23rd, will take place from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. at the Hall of Fame of the Trotter, in Goshen. Additional information is available at http://www.ocnyinfo.com/0506MentalhealthConference.html IN THE NEWS: Marchers
rally in support of Timothy's Law UTICA — Marchers gathered Friday afternoon at the state office building on Genesee Street in support of state legislation that would reform health insurance coverage for mental health and addiction treatment. Supporters of the legislation, known as Timothy's Law, marched from Catholic Charities on Genesee Street to the office building. Timothy's Law is named for Timothy O'Clair, a Schenectady boy who committed suicide at age 12 in 2001. The proposal would prohibit private insurance companies from limiting coverage for mental illness and substance abuse. Timothy's
Law Rally. By: Lisa Tarricone Charlene Dech had to do what no mother should ever have to do when her daughter Eva was just 11 years old, she relinquished custody of her to a state institution so that Medicaid would pay for the mental health treatment Eva needed which her private insurance refused to cover. My insurance allowed only 19 days of lifetime mental health coverage; I had to give up custody [of Eva] to receive services and then face years of court battles to get her back, Dech told over 150 supporters and elected officials last Friday at a rally for mental health parity legislation that took place at Renaissance Plaza. Dech was one of several speakers who came together at the rally to tell how their lives have been impacted by mental illness and chemical dependency and by the current discriminatory insurance practices in New York State that severely limit their access to treatment for these conditions. The speakers, along with several elected officials, called for the passage of Timothy's Law, which would bring parity to insurance coverage for mental disorders and chemical dependency. Timothy's Law is named after Timothy O'Clair, who took his own life in March 2001 at the age of 12 after suffering from severe depression and other emotional disorders. After years of expensive out-of-pocket costs, his parents were forced to relinquish custody of him to foster care so that Medicaid could pay for the treatment he needed, which they could no longer afford and which his father's private insurance denied. Jean Anne Cipolla, a graduate student at Sarah Lawrence College, suffers from depression and anxiety and spoke of the economic and political realities of the parity law. People ask, why give more insurance coverage to the mentally ill and the addicted, but parity is not about asking for more. It's asking to be treated equally under the law, Cipolla said. Thom Forbes, one of the speakers who is a fourth generation alcoholic in recovery and whose wife and daughter suffer from depression and chemical dependency, urged support for Timothy's law so that mental illness and addiction disorders be covered under health insurance policies in the same way that other physical illness such as heart disease or diabetes is. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five children have behavioral, emotional or mental health problems, said Assemblywoman Amy Paulin. Families should not be forced to exhaust their financial resources to access mental health services they can afford, she told rally supporters. Deirdre Forbes (Thom's wife) credited her recovery from clinical depression and addiction as proof that treatment works and urged Senate leadership to pass legislation that includes coverage for small businesses and chemical dependency. Compromise is not a solution; it is a death sentence for many, she said, referring to the state Senate's parity bill that eliminates coverage for addiction and eating disorders. Assemblyman Adam Bradley said, "Its time for New York to join the other 35 states who have parity laws," and pointed to the lobbying influence of HMOs and healthcare companies with record breaking profits in perpetuating the cost argument against mental health parity legislation. Tom O’Clair, Timothy's father, also spoke out at the White Plains rally and has been the commanding force in driving Timothy's Law legislation. He and his family have campaigned across the state since their son's death to bring attention to the financial discrimination in health insurance coverage that has forced over 12,000 families in 2003 alone, to formally relinquish custody of their children in order to secure them state-paid mental health services. "The lack of parity cost my family Timothy. Tell me to my face that you can put a price on that." After
Vivid Ads, a Bill Stalls. By Kate Phillips WASHINGTON, May 11. A provocative advertisement featuring a bright red push-up bra symbolized the fierce opposition to a small business health insurance bill that collapsed in the Senate on Thursday. The advertisement, by the American Cancer Society, seemed to pop off the pages of newspapers and Internet screens for the past week in a three-dimensional way. "Don't Let the U.S. Senate Leave Women Exposed," it warned of the Republican-sponsored bill to allow small businesses to band together across state lines to buy health insurance for employees. The Cancer Society and 200 other groups contended the bill would strip away protections for consumers, including state laws that mandate insurance coverage for cancer screenings, and would endanger sick or older workers. Republicans called those claims scare tactics. The bill's primary sponsor, Senator Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming, told a gathering of small business owners on Thursday that there would be ample coverage. Trade groups, including the National Federation of Independent Businesses, had mounted an advertising campaign to lobby for the measure. The House has passed a similar bill eight times. All week, Democrats were united. They said Senator Bill Frist, the Republican majority leader, who had been promoting a Senate "Health Week," barred them from debating health issues like stem cell research or an extension of the May 15 Medicare enrollment deadline. "We haven't had a health care minute," Minority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said at a news conference on Wednesday. The bra advertisement surfaced in certain states, including Maine, which has two female Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, who is chairwoman of the Small Business Committee. To woo Democrats, Ms. Snowe wanted to offer an amendment that would have protected benefits, like mammograms and contraceptives, as long as a majority of states required insurers to cover them. Describing the bill as "a very important beginning," Senator Snowe said: "What's the alternative? Nothing or catastrophic coverage? That's the choice. This includes the coverage we care about as women and for women." To quell other objections, Mr. Enzi had revised his bill to reduce the variations in premium costs for healthy or sick or older people. Democrats rejected that. Democrats eventually thwarted the measure on Thursday night with a filibuster. Mr. Frist fell five votes short of the 60 votes necessary to move the bill forward. For
a Kennedy, Fighting the Stigma of Mental Illness Becomes Personal.
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg WASHINGTON, May 14. Patrick J. Kennedy was keeping an uncomfortable secret. Representative Kennedy, scion of America's most loved and hated Democratic clan, has been a passionate advocate for ending the stigma of mental illness; he told voters years ago of his treatment for depression and cocaine abuse. But when he slipped off to the Mayo Clinic last December to get help for addiction to prescription painkillers, he had trouble overcoming that stigma himself. When he crashed his Mustang convertible into a Capitol barricade in the middle of the night earlier this month, Mr. Kennedy, of Rhode Island, was thrust into a clash between personal privacy and political beliefs. Hours before he told the world he was checking himself back into the Mayo Clinic, he wrestled with going public. "He consistently talked about being in the spotlight and not being able to just say, 'I'm struggling, I have issues,' " said Jack McConnell, a good friend who counseled Mr. Kennedy that morning, May 5. "One of the things he weighed was whether doing this would take the weight off his shoulders that he always felt when he was out in public." In the mix of blessing and burden that invariably accompanies life as a Kennedy, the congressman has perhaps had more burden than most. At 38, the youngest child of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and his first wife, Joan, is a success in his own right. But the skinny kid with the red hair and freckles is a man now, and after years of having his foibles turn up in the gossip sheets, he is at a turning point both political and personal. "This is a test," said one of his mentors, Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island. "I think he has set a standard for himself of dealing forthrightly." That forthrightness only goes so far; while in treatment, Mr. Kennedy declined an interview. He has attributed the accident to confusion caused by two medicines, Ambien, a sleep aid, and Phenergan, for gastric distress. Medical experts say his explanation for the accident is plausible, though the Capitol Police, who complained that their supervisors barred sobriety testing, said they suspected that Mr. Kennedy had been drinking. He said he had not. Some people close to the congressman, including his father, who has lunch with his son every Thursday, said they saw nothing amiss before the accident. "Certainly this last Christmastime we talked about it, whether he ought to try and take a reading about where his whole health stood," Senator Kennedy said. "He made a judgment to get help at that time, and he came back and was very upbeat and positive. Now he understands that this is a continuing process." Representative Kennedy sometimes seems ill suited to the legacy of Camelot. He is reserved, and his syntax sometimes gets mangled. There is a tentativeness about him, "a bit of awkwardness," said Representative Jim Langevin, Democrat of Rhode Island. Mr. Kennedy's biographer, Darrell M. West, a political scientist at Brown, said some people called him "the un-Kennedy." Still, he has traded on the Kennedy mystique, using his celebrity to start his career. His celebrity did not hurt, either, when he got into various scrapes, like the time he shoved a Los Angeles airport security guard or when the Coast Guard retrieved a woman who said the two had argued while drinking on his yacht. Mr. Kennedy's advisers say he now views these incidents, as well as his addiction and bouts of binge drinking, through the prism of his bipolar disorder, a type of depression marked by extreme highs and lows. But some wonder whether this latest incident must be his last. "I don't think anybody realized until now how serious his problems were," said M. Charles Bakst, a longtime political columnist for The Providence Journal. "Now it all makes sense, and you realize that this kid is on the brink. And I think if it happens again, you are going to see people say, not necessarily angrily or bitterly, but sadly, maybe, that public life isn't for him." From the moment Patrick Joseph Kennedy was born, on July 14, 1967, his was a public life. In his Capitol Hill office, Mr. Kennedy keeps a framed copy of The Cape Cod Times's coverage of his christening, with the headline "Patrick's First Bow Draws 1,200." He was a frail child. While his cousins played touch football at the family estate in Hyannis Port, Mass., Patrick's severe asthma sidelined him. His mother struggled with alcohol dependence, and his father was often away. "He was never the guy who hung out with the captain of the football team," said his cousin, Anthony Shriver. "He was always the guy who hung out with the guy nobody wanted to hang out with." Those life experiences seem to have shaped him. Like many of his relatives, he is an advocate for the disenfranchised. But as Mr. Bakst said, "He seems to feel it personally." He was interested in politics early on, and he was a frequent presence on the campaign plane during his father's 1980 run for the Democratic nomination for president. His parents split right after that race. Later, at prep school, Patrick sought treatment for cocaine abuse. As a student at Providence College in 1988, he underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his spine. The operation left him with lingering back pain that, he has said, prompted his use of narcotics. He was recovering in the hospital when he decided to make his first electoral bid, for the Rhode Island Legislature against an entrenched Democratic incumbent. Kennedy money poured in, and pundits knew it was over when Mr. Kennedy cleverly stationed famous relatives at polling places and had photographers offer to take Polaroid pictures of voters with them. Mr. Kennedy entered the statehouse as a maverick and left six years later a member of the establishment. He won his first House race in 1994. Joshua Seftel, a documentary filmmaker who chronicled the race, said, "You could see a sadness in Patrick." In the House, Mr. Kennedy caught the attention of the Democratic minority leader, Representative Richard A. Gephardt, who persuaded him to become chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2000. It was a grueling year of fund-raising and travel, marked by both the Los Angeles airport and Coast Guard episodes. It was also the year he disclosed, in an appearance with Tipper Gore, his bipolar disorder. The announcement was unplanned, but House members were not shocked. After the 2000 elections, Mr. Kennedy was rewarded with a coveted seat on the House Appropriations Committee. He considered running for the Senate, but decided against it. And he has made mental health his signature issue. "He found an altitude he was comfortable flying at," said Erik Smith, who was Mr. Kennedy's spokesman at the campaign committee. That is how it appeared, from a distance at least, until 2:45 a.m. May 4, when Mr. Kennedy crashed his car. In the lone interview he has given, to The Providence Journal, Mr. Kennedy said he was at home with a female friend when he woke up and thought he needed to go to the Capitol to vote. She tried unsuccessfully to dissuade him, he said. Mr. Kennedy's immediate future is unclear. Senator Kennedy could not say when his son's treatment would be over, and the congressman may be greeted with as much scrutiny as sympathy on his return. But his cousin Mr. Shriver, who said he had watched "countless members of my family" overcome addiction, was optimistic. "Once he gets this current challenge under control, watch out," Mr. Shriver said. "He'll just knock the socks off of everybody." |
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