[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 27]
[House]
[Pages 36273-36274]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1745
               HOUSE SHOULD VOTE ON TREATMENT PARITY BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RAMSTAD. Mr. Speaker, with 54 million Americans suffering the 
ravages of mental illness and 26 million suffering from chemical 
addiction, the failure of this Congress to pass the Paul Wellstone 
Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act is a slap in the face to 
millions of Americans with mental illness and/or drug and alcohol 
addiction. It's also the biggest failure of this session of Congress.
  Congress' failure to knock down the discriminatory barriers to 
treatment is a matter of life or death for people suffering from mental 
health and addiction diseases, diseases that took the lives of over 
200,000 Americans last year alone.
  Just 2 weeks ago, my friend of over 25 years took his own life as a 
result of depression. He joined 34,000 other Americans who have 
committed suicide from depression this year.
  In my home State of Minnesota, Anna Westin was a young woman with 
anorexia. She suffered for several years from this terrible disease. 
Her parents' insurance company refused to cover the inpatient treatment 
that she desperately needed. Distraught at her condition and being a 
financial burden on her parents, young Anna took her own life.
  Representative Patrick Kennedy and I held 14 field hearings across 
our country this year on the need to end insurance discrimination 
against mental illness and addiction. We heard story after story after 
story like these.
  We heard from Steve Winter, who traveled in his wheelchair to several 
of our field hearings. When Steve was a young teenager, he awoke one 
morning with a stinging pain in his back. He stumbled downstairs to 
breakfast. He realized that blood was streaming down his back. He heard 
his mother's voice say, ``Your sister is in heaven, and now you and I 
are going there to join her.'' His mother was pointing a gun at him. 
She had been taken off the schizophrenia drugs she desperately needed. 
As Steve put it, ``My mother didn't shoot my sister and me; her mental 
illness did.''
  Clearly there are not many families in America, Mr. Speaker, who 
haven't been touched in some way by mental illness or addiction. Like 
my close personal friend, like Anna Westin and

[[Page 36274]]

Steve Winter's sister, I could have been one of the thousands of 
Americans who die each year from mental illness and chemical addiction.
  For on July 31, 1981, I awoke in a jail cell in Sioux Falls, South 
Dakota, as the result of my last alcoholic blackout after abusing 
alcohol for 12 long and painful years. I'm alive and sober today, Mr. 
Speaker, only because of the access I had to treatment in 1981. I'm 
living proof that treatment works and recovery is real.
  But too many people don't have that access to treatment. It's a 
national disgrace that 270,000 Americans were denied addiction 
treatment last year. It's a national tragedy that 160,000 of our fellow 
Americans died from chemical addiction and 34,000 died from suicide as 
a result of their depression. And it's also, Mr. Speaker, a national 
crisis that untreated addiction and mental illness cost our economy 
over $550 billion last year.
  And what is Congress' response? Despite bipartisan passage by three 
House committees and two subcommittees, we were denied a vote in the 
full House on the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity 
Act.
  This legislation would give Americans suffering from addiction 
greater access to treatment by prohibiting health insurers from placing 
discriminatory barriers on treatment. As many as 16 million Americans 
in health plans could receive treatment under this act.
  Despite the 273 cosponsors of H.R. 1424, this treatment parity bill, 
no vote was held. Despite the tens of millions of Americans suffering 
the ravages of addiction and mental illness, no vote was allowed to 
increase their access to lifesaving treatment.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to end the discrimination against people 
suffering from mental illness and chemical addiction. It's time to end 
the higher copayments, deductibles, out-of-pocket costs, and limited 
treatment stays, discriminatory barriers to treatment that don't exist 
for any other diseases. It's time to treat mental illness and chemical 
addiction under the same rules as physical illnesses.
  Mr. Speaker, it's time for the House of Representatives to vote on 
the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. Those still 
suffering cannot afford to wait any longer.

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