Former first lady, Wellstone son push for mental health coverage

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter teamed up with the son of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone on Tuesday to push for mental health insurance legislation, saying the goal has never been closer to realization.

"We've been working on this for so long, it finally seems to be in reach," said Carter, who has championed mental health causes for more than 35 years.

David Wellstone hopes to carry out the legacy of his father, a Minnesota Democratic senator who died in a plane crash in 2002.

"Although he was passionate on many issues, there was not another issue that surpassed this in terms of his passion," David Wellstone said.

Carter and Wellstone hope to win passage for the "Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act," that would require equal health insurance coverage for mental and physical illnesses when policies include both. The United States is one of the few developed nations that lacks government-underwritten national health care.
The two advocates, along with Rep. Patrick Kennedy, discussed the bill with The Associated Press on Tuesday, before testifying at a House subcommittee hearing on the bill.

"It's a moral issue," Carter said.

David Wellstone recalled his father talking about his own brother's battle with mental illness, and said the experience motivated him to seek better mental health coverage laws when he got to the Senate. In 1996, Wellstone and Republican Sen. Pete Domenici won passage of a law banning insurance plans that offer mental health coverage from setting lower annual and lifetime spending limits for mental treatments than for physical ailments.

The legislation in Congress would build on that by adding things like co-payments, deductibles and treatment limitations, a longtime goal of Paul Wellstone's.

source:www.iht.com