What About Mental Health Insurance?

ROCHESTER, MN — Each year in the US thirty-thousand people with untreated depression end their own lives.Many of these people are having to go without adequate care because they can’t afford it, and insurance companies won’t provide it.

Soon this all could change.

The wheels are in motion for a solution…and it’s all being powered by the name and the spirit of a late Minnesota Senator.

Chris Hrapsky has the details in this NewsCenter Special Report.

Former US Senator Paul Wellstone says, “I think the pressure builds up. People want the government on their side and in this particular case people feel a lot of insecurity.”

This is the late senator Paul Wellstone 16 years ago. Talking about a problem that still lingers among the mentally ill today.

It’s not cancer, but some call it cancer of the soul, and mental health experts say it’s not covered by insurance nearly enough. Dr. Ronald David is president of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Davis says, “We have a major problem with mental health not being covered in the same way by insurance programs whether we’re talking about a government program like Medicare or private insurance.”

Mental health coverage can differ in many ways: By provider, by family, by company size, and even by state law. But most health plans do not cover mental illness in the same way they cover physical illness.

Psychiatrist Dr. Annette Smick says, “Some of the mental illnesses are lifelong. Chronic and persistent. I think insurance companies want to back away from that.”

Health Insurance Agent John Whelan says, “Insurance is a dollars and cents proposition. They are not the Salvation Army. They are not a charitable organization.”

One health insurance agent says over the years mental health coverage has been lacking pressure from politicians and the public to make a change. And until generic drugs were created it’s been very expensive for insurance companies to cover it.

Whelan says, “I think it’s like a lot of things. It takes a long time for that pressure to bubble to the surface.”

In congress, that pressure has reached the surface, and what may soon spill out is the Paul Wellstone mental health and addiction equity act.

Already through the senate, this new bill awaits the house. If passed it would fill any current loopholes in mental health coverage and require fair and equal coverage for all states.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar D-Minnesota says, “You are going to get fair mental health care. You are not going to get care that arbitrarily says you can go to three visits when you really haven’t gotten through your disease. That’s not what they should do for cancer and that’s not what they should do for mental illness.”

It was his passion that brought it to the table, and now it could be a savior for an estimated 100 million Americans.

Minnesota has some of the toughest mandates in the country on mental health coverage.

Through state and county grants places like The Zumbro Valley Mental Health Clinic in Rochester can provide services for people without adequate insurance.

And after years of debate, Senator Klobuchar says the Wellstone bill could be on the president’s desk by the end of the year.

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