LA Times-Mental Health Parity

[Guest guest]

Please read the attached article from the LA Times entitled " MENTAL HEALTH

INSURANCE PARITY IS AN EMPTY NOTION.   This is a fantastic expose about the

false claims regarding Mental Health Parity, the subjectivity of psychiatry's

diagnoses, and the vested interests behind Mental Health Parity.  Letters to

the editor would be a great idea to acknowledge both the LA Times and the

authors of the article, Professor Cohen and Hoeller for this

fantastic expose.  Points to include in your letter could cover the following

but, remember, these should be put into your own words.  You don't have to

include every point, but these are overall good messages to incorporate: 

 

Unlike standard medical diagnosis, psychiatrists cannot distinguish between a

mental disorder and no mental disorder. Even the Diagnostic Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) admits this.  While some patient advocacy

groups, heavily funded by drug interests and the mental health lobby, purport

that mental illness is like a physical disease such as diabetes, cancer, or

epilepsy, scientific evidence does not substantiate this. 

 

Before Congress gives psychiatry a blank check to collect insurance coverage

for all 374 of its DSM disorders, it should investigate their scientific and

medical merit.

 

In psychiatry, no test or brain scan exists to prove that a 'mental disorder'

is a physical disease. Disingenuous comparisons between physical and mental

illness and medicine are simply part of psychiatry's orchestrated but

fraudulent public relations and marketing campaign. "

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that over the next 10 years

" parity " will cost American taxpayers $23 billion. 

Based on mental health practitioners perpetrating more fraud than any other

sector of medicine, taxpayers can expect at least $7 billion of this will be

defrauded. This is in addition to the estimated $30 - $40 billion defrauded

each year in the mental health industry generally. 

" Parity " will increase insurance premiums anywhere from 10 percent and 40

percent.

Mandated mental health will force between one and three million people into

the ranks of the uninsured. 

Studies show the frequency with which physical illnesses are misdiagnosed as

" mental illness. " In one study, 83 percent of people referred by clinics and

social workers for psychiatric treatment had undiagnosed physical illnesses;

42 percent of those diagnosed with " psychoses " were later found to be

suffering from a medical illness. 

The " newer antipsychotics medications " are sold at 30 times the price of the

older discredited drugs, yet are really no more effective. 

 The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that over the next 10 years

“parity†will cost American taxpayers $23 billion.

 

If you would like to view this online, click on the following link.  You will

first need to register to read the full story. (This is free.)

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HREF= " http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-hoeller8jul08.sto

ry " >http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-hoeller8jul08.story

</A> 

 

The text of the article is printed below:

 

 

COMMENTARY

Mental Health Insurance Parity Is an Empty Notion

By DAVID COHEN and KEITH HOELLER, Cohen is a professor of social

welfare at Florida International University, Miami. Hoeller is editor

of the Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry in Seattle.

 

The symptoms of the nation's ailing health-care system are easy to recite.

But making an accurate diagnosis and prescribing the proper treatment are

difficult. Even with the best of intentions, we might misdiagnose the

problem, prescribe the wrong treatment and kill the patient.

This might happen if Congress follows President Bush's lead and passes

legislation mandating mental health insurance parity.

The basic idea behind parity legislation is to cover mental illness on the

same basis as physical illness. Arguments offered by proponents of parity are

well-known: Although one in five Americans suffers from a mental illness, few

seek treatment because of the stigma; mental illness is just like physical

illness; and new drugs help millions recover quickly. Each of these claims is

misleading, false and dangerous. The stigma associated with mental health

treatment has nothing to do with the extent of insurance coverage. This

stigma has more to do with the messages that people know come with a

psychiatric diagnosis: that they are damaged, that no treatment can cure

their illness and that prescribed treatment--usually drugs and more

drugs--would be needed indefinitely.

In 1996, outpatient psychiatric drugs accounted for 9% of the nation's direct

spending on mental health. This figure has increased dramatically since, with

the drug companies' successful marketing. Sales of antidepressants--drugs

repeatedly found to be no more effective than placebos--reached $10.4 billion

in 2000, and $6.5 billion more was spent on antipsychotics and anti-anxiety

drugs.

The mantra of the mental health movement--whose major lay and professional

branches, such as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the American

Psychiatric Assn., have deep financial roots in the drug companies--has been

that mental illnesses are just like physical illnesses and therefore should

be covered by insurance. But mental illnesses are precisely not like physical

illnesses in at least two fundamental ways: Their diagnosis bears no

resemblance to diagnosis in any other branch of medicine, and mental patients

routinely get treated against their will.

Before 1980 and the third edition of the American Psychiatric Assn.'s then

virtually unknown Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, most

mental health practitioners did not even make official mental health

diagnoses. With insurers wanting standardization to pay mental health claims,

however, the American Psychiatric Assn. redesigned the manual to become the

standard for insurance payment. No diagnosis, no payment. As a result, the

number of mental illnesses has increased, along with new drugs to treat them.

Clinical psychologists initially balked when the revised manual was set to

declare that all these new diagnoses were medical " diseases. " But when that

word was replaced by " disorder, " they eagerly began diagnosing and collecting

money from insurers.

Most diagnosing in mental health is based on observation. No physical test

detects or confirms the presence of any mental illness. Mental health

professionals can create new illnesses without any laboratory data to back

them up. Nonmedical personnel can diagnose these illnesses simply by looking

them up in the manual.

When about 40 million Americans still lack medical insurance and millions

more have minimal coverage, and when private coverage of nursing-home

expenses is nil, why should mental illnesses be covered by health insurance?

There is another way in which mental illnesses are not like physical

illnesses. Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals routinely

force their treatments on people who explicitly refuse them and they then get

paid by insurers for these " treatments. "

That millions more Americans are using a dozen new psychiatric drugs does not

mean we are reducing the burden of suffering. The scientific evidence does

not show that the incidence or prevalence of any major mental disorder has

been reduced over the last 50 years, or even that long-term outcomes have

improved.

Clearly, mental health parity would increase coverage for specialty and

general medical services such as hospitalization and drugs. However, there is

no evidence that parity would encourage the development of a diversified

human service sector or that consumers would benefit from easier access to a

free marketplace of mental health services.

 

Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times