From CHADD USA.
Unfortunately we in Canada are far behind the Americans on this sort of thing. But if you do live in the US, make the call. That is unless your satisfied with the availability and resources devoted to mental health treatment in the US. Politicians do respond to public pressure if there’s enough of it.
Action: On Friday, December 7th, use the toll-free Parity Hotline, 1-866-parity4 (1-866-727-4894), to call your representative and senators and leave a message urging their active support for the mental health and addiction parity legislation. (The Parity Hotline reaches the U.S. Capitol switchboard, which can connect callers to the offices of their members.) To locate your US Representative go to www.house.gov and enter your zip code in the upper left hand corner; go to www.senate.gov look up the Senators from your state in the upper right hand corner.
Targets: All members of the House and Senate.
Message: “I am calling to ask the senator/representative to not let another year go by without passing mental health and addiction parity legislation. Please work with the Leadership to pass parity now.”
Status of Parity: S. 558, a compromise negotiated over the previous two years, passed the Senate under unanimous consent on September 18. H.R. 1424, approved by three House committees, will next go to the Rules Committee and the House Floor. We hope that the negotiations that are now underway between the House and Senate are successful in devising one compromise bill that can pass in both the Senate and House.
This session of Congress will end around December 21. If parity is not passed by then the issue will lapse over into 2008, when many expect it will be lost in an election year deadlock. With one massive grassroots telephone call-in day we hope to impress Congress with a united front that says the parity issue must not be set aside again.
Thanks!
Paul J. Seifert
CHADD Director of Public Policy
In a nutshell S.558 is
A bill to provide parity between health insurance coverage of mental health benefits and benefits for medical and surgical services.
Amends the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), the Public Health Service Act, and the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit treatment limits or the imposition of financial requirements on mental health and substance-related disorder benefits in group health plans which are not similarly imposed on substantially all medical and surgical benefits in any category of items or services under such plans.
More details about the bill on their specific sites