Washington Post Columnist Laments ‘Bias’ Against People With Mental Illness

"For all the rhetoric about removing the stigma of mental illness and treating disorders of the brain the same way as disorders of the body, the bias" against people with mental illnesses "persists," Abigail Trafford writes in her "Second Opinion" column in the Washington Post. Trafford says that while "[h]eadlines" across the country have "rightly focused" on the "collapse" of public mental health programs, people with mental illness who have private insurance have also seen their support "erod[e]," as "insurance agencies stint on payment for mental health services, managed care plans place limits on benefits and the burden of copayments and other out-of-pocket expenses continues to increase." She concludes: "The president last week came out in favor of patients' rights. That ought to include the millions of Americans with mental illness" (Trafford, Washington Post, 2/5). In December, Congress approved an extension of a 1996 mental health parity law but defeated an expansion of that measure. The 1996 law prohibits private insurers from establishing annual and lifetime limits on mental health benefits, unless those same limits applied to other medical illnesses. The new bill would have attempted to close loopholes in the original law by requiring insurers that provide mental health coverage to offer those benefits at the same level as the benefits provided for physical health coverage with respect both to costs (such as deductibles) and to access to services (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 12/18/01).