Here is a news release from the American Mental Health Counselors Association regarding the intertwining of mental health parity and the economic rescue debate…

E-News from Washington

Vol. 08-39

October 1, 2008

Parity Legislation Now Part of Bailout Package

Congress remains focused on passage of a major package of measure to relieve the crisis in the financial industry. The House failed in its attempt to pass a bailout package on Tuesday, September 30. This evening, October 1, the Senate will attempt to pass a slightly modified relief package, which also includes mental health and addictive disorder parity legislation and an array of tax policy provisions. The mental health parity language included in the Senate’s bailout package is the same language as was approved by both the House and the Senate last week as part of a larger package of tax policy renewals and extensions. The tax package, including the parity provisions, has been stalled due to disagreements between Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate regarding the extent to which tax credits and breaks should be paid for.

Although the Senate is expected to approve the new, expanded bailout package, including the mental health parity and tax extenders provisions, it is unclear how the legislation will be received by House members. AMHCA and ACA will attempt to keep members apprised of developments as they occur. In the meantime, counselors are encouraged to continue contacting their Representatives and Senators to urge the enactment of parity legislation before Congress adjourns for the year.

I have blogged about parity before and am generally in favor of this kind of legislation. I understand that requiring insurers to cover certain conditions may seem like an undue interference in the market. However, I think most opposition comes from a misunderstanding that severe mental and emotional conditions have much of their genesis in the brain as the organ of consciousness.

Filed under: Professional issues, mental health, politics by Warren - 1 Comment →

This just in from the American Mental Health Counselors Association:

E-News from Washington
Vol. 08-36
September 24, 2008

House, Senate Approve Landmark Parity Bills

In historic votes held Tuesday, September 23, both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed separate bills requiring private sector health plans to end discriminatory coverage of mental health and addictive disorder services. The votes bring AMHCA, ACA and other mental health advocacy organizations significantly closer to the long-standing goal of enacting strong federal parity protections.

Both votes occurred Tuesday afternoon. A free-standing parity bill, H.R. 6983, the “Paul Wellstone-Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act,” was voted on in the House of Representatives. The bill included the parity protections agreed to earlier this year by House and Senate negotiators, as well as provisions to offset the legislation’s relatively small costs. The House vote was 376-47, a very strong show of support for the legislation.

In the Senate, identical parity protections were included as part of a broad package of wide-ranging tax-related provisions, including extensions of expiring and expired tax credit and incentive programs, a short-term adjustment to the alternative minimum tax, and provisions for helping victims of recent natural disasters. The Senate vote on the package was 93-2.

It is unclear what the next step for the parity legislation will be, although further votes are expected in the coming days. House and Senate members have not yet reached agreement on how to pay for the tax-related provisions approved by the Senate, which is why the House considered the parity legislation separately.

AMHCA and ACA thank their members who contacted Congress in support of parity. We encourage counselors to stay tuned for further developments, and to be prepared for more grassroots work as needed. We’re almost there!

For more information, contact either Beth Powell with AMHCA (at 800-326-2642, ext. 105, e-mail: bpowell@amhca.org) or Scott Barstow with ACA (at 800-347-6647 x234, e-mail: sbarstow@counseling.org).

Beth Powell
Director, Public Policy and Professional Issues
American Mental Health Counselors Association
The only organization working exclusively for mental health counselors
801 N. Fairfax Street, Suite 304
Alexandria, VA 22314

I am glad to see this but the devil will be in the details of how to pay for it when we are in such a financial crisis.

Filed under: mental health, politics by Warren - No Comments →

Some have asked me why I initiated and supported the Golden Rule Pledge Initiative along with the Day of Silence. Watch this video and I hope you can feel a little of the anguish that is the daily life of a child who is the target of bullying.

The song is a way of introducing the new e-book Bullycide in America: Moms speak out about the bullying’suicide connection. Full disclosure: I have some articles in this book and have done some volunteering for this group. These stories and those of kids I know have touched me in profound ways and I hope will go a long way toward creating change. There are multiple factors which inform an understanding of bullying and I hope these cases and articles will help raise awareness.

Filed under: Golden Rule Pledge, Professional issues, mental health by Warren - No Comments →

ThinkProgress has produced another inaccurate and misleading claim about Sarah Palin’s actions as Governor of Alaska.

They claim that she cut funds to Special Olympics in an obvious bid to paint her as a hypocrite given that she has a Down Syndrome son and she asserts that she will be an advocate for families with special needs kids.

Here is the 2007 budget with the Special Olympics line item:

The program was alloted received $250,000 in FY 2007.

Here is the 2008 budget with the Special Olympics line item:

The program received $275,000 for a 10% increase.

This type of attack is getting old. Palin opponents are going through these budgets looking for reductions in legislative allocations and then calling Palin’s program management “a cut in funding.” In fact, under Palin, Special Olympics received a 10% increase in funding.

ThinkProgress says that the Special Olympics operating budget was cut in half. Given what the 2007 budget says, I believe that claim to be incorrect. It appears that the projects funded “facility upgrades” in 2007 and “travel and event related costs and property acquisition” which were designed to supplement the Special Olympics. I went back to 2005’s budget and the Special Olympics only received $125,000 in that year. A review of Special Olympics 990 form shows that they received just over 1.8 million in revenues in 2006 and so this allocation from the state of Alaska did not slash their operating budget.

UPDATE: 9/18/08 - ThinkProgress made a bit of a clarification but didn’t really correct their misleading post with this:

It’s a stretch to say she “pushed” for any policy improvements. Though Palin did sign a law increasing special education funding in Alaska, “she had no role whatsoever” in its development, according to the bill’s author, Rep. Mike Hawker (R). Moreover, as governor, Palin vetoed $275,000 in Special Olympics Alaska funds (Page 100, SB 221 with vetoes), slashing the organization’s operating budget in half.

Update: To clarify, the documents show that Gov. Palin proposed cutting the Special Olympics budget in half. The actual budget as passed slightly increased Special Olympics funding, though by only half of what the organization had requested.

No, Gov. Palin did not propose cutting the Special Olympics budget in half. She reduced a proposed 120% increase to a 10% increase.

Filed under: Media and society, mental health, politics by Warren - 11 Comments →

I just received this from Deirdre Cronin, Executive Director of Covenant House Alaska. This debunks the Washington Post’s story I addressed yesterday. I had asked her for a statement regarding the Post story and she provided this information.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 4, 2008
Contact: Deirdre A. Cronin
Executive Director
907-339-4203

“Covenant House Alaska is a multi-service agency serving homeless and runaway youth, including teen mothers. The majority of the agency’s annual operating budget is privately raised, with no more than 10 to 15 percent of funds coming from state grants in any given year. We are grateful for the support we have received from Governor Sarah Palin, the Alaska legislature and our Congressional delegation over the years.

Despite some press reports to the contrary, our operating budget was not reduced. Our $3.9 million appropriation is directed toward a multi-year capital project and it is our understanding that the state simply opted to phase in its support for this project over several years, rather than all at once in the current budget year.”

Covenant House Alaska is Alaska’s largest private non-profit adolescent care agency serving homeless, runaway and at–risk youth between the ages of 13 and 21. With particular expertise in helping some of the most hopeless teens grow into independent, successful and productive adults.

-END

More on this story here…

Filed under: Breaking news, mental health, politics by Warren - 21 Comments →

The British medical journal, The Lancet, published an editorial in their August 23 issue regarding appropriate care for women after an abortion. Although the editorial could have taken a stronger stance on the APA report, I believe they have issued an important caution to those reviewing literature on mental health and abortion.

More than a third of American women will have an abortion by the age of 45 years, if current rates continue. A study published in The Lancet last year showed that 1·5 million abortions were done in the USA and Canada in 2003, compared with 42 million abortions worldwide.

Much attention has been given to the ethical considerations of terminating a pregnancy, but little effort has been directed at the long-term mental health effects of abortion on women. In 1989, the American Psychological Association (APA) undertook a systematic review of the literature and concluded that a single elective abortion did not result in long-term mental health problems. However, in 2006, a study published in the Journal of Youth & Adolescence concluded that abortion had a greater risk of adverse mental health outcomes compared with childbirth. This review was used in a South Dakota court to support a proposal to have abortion made illegal. The proposal failed, but doctors in the state must now inform women having a termination that they will be at risk of future mental health problems.

Recognising the need for a definitive decision on the issue, the APA commissioned the Mental Health and Abortion report, released on Aug 13. The authors systematically reviewed 50 studies, published in peer-reviewed journals since their last report in 1989, and concluded that, among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have an elective first-trimester abortion than if they deliver that pregnancy.

Although this report shows that there is no causal link between abortion and mental ill-health, the fact that some women do experience psychological problems after a termination should not be trivialised. The APA report concludes that such cases are often the result of confounding issues, such as a history of mental ill-health. Abortion is an important part of comprehensive reproductive health services. Women choosing to terminate must be offered an appropriate package of follow-up care, which includes psychological counselling when needed.

Filed under: APA, abortion, mental health by Warren - 4 Comments →

The Tennesee church shooter, James Adkisson, sounds like many other mass killers in this article from the Knoxville News-Sentinel. In the USA Today, the note he left was described as “irrational.”

In reading the Sentinel article, you get the sad picture of a person who was in need of mental health treatment but did not get it. His ex-wife attended this church which may have been a motive in the shooting.

Filed under: Breaking news, mental health by Warren - 11 Comments →