Those with mental illness deserve equal insurance coverage

Sally Stultz knew her son was different the moment he was born. He rarely returned her gaze, threw over-the-top tantrums as a toddler and didn’t sleep through the night until he was 12 years old.

Today he’s 17 and temporarily admitted to a hospital psychiatric unit. He’s been diagnosed with both a bipolar disorder and developmental delays.

Through the years, Stultz’s health insurance didn’t cover the cost of all the mental health care her son needed. She went into debt to pay his psychiatrist’s bills. Her credit rating suffered after he was hospitalized. And she fears a lack of early treatment may have left him with behavioral problems so severe he could wind up in prison.

Stultz, a single mom and professional who lives in Spokane Valley, tells her son’s story these days to help convince Washington state legislators to approve a bill requiring equal insurance coverage for mental illness.

The House passed its version on Jan. 28. Next it heads to the Senate. And this year, supporters of the bill are optimistic that Washington will finally join at least 35 other states which have passed similar legislation.

Approximately 1 in 5 American adults suffers from mental illness every year, estimates the National Institute of Mental Health. Yet many insurance plans set special limits or extra co-payments on coverage of mental illness that don’t apply to physical ailments.

Stultz’s insurance plan, for example, paid for her son to see his psychiatrist only 12 times a year. He needed weekly treatment.

Business groups have argued against the bill, and predict it will increase costs of employee health insurance by as much as 5 percent. Supporters point to research that concludes costs would rise less than one-half of 1 percent.

The needs of business shouldn’t be lightly dismissed – good employers enhance a community’s collective emotional well-being with worthwhile work and steady paychecks. But even President George W. Bush, who can hardly be accused of ignoring the needs of business, has endorsed the need for covering mental illnesses just like physical ones.

In recent years, American culture has placed less value on mental health care. In movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s, therapists showed up as wise figures. In the last decade or so, they’ve increasingly appeared as objects of fear or ridicule. Think of the evil psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs” or even the silly therapist played by Billy Crystal in “Analyze This.”

As the world’s last newspaper columnist to weigh in on the film “Million Dollar Baby,” I’d argue that movie also displays this American cultural disregard.

Much has been made of the film’s shocking plot twist, which I’ll attempt not to entirely give away here. But if the characters played by Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank aren’t poster children for the need for expert mental health care, I don’t know who is.

The powerful film conveys the message that a man who destroys does so out of love, and deserves our admiration for his choice.

But this character, a man who attends Mass every day for 25 years for some unexplained personal failing, has narrowed his world view to a pinpoint. The young woman he loves like a daughter pursues a self-destructive path clear through her boxing career and beyond. Both could have been helped immeasurably by treatment from a competent psychiatrist, psychologist or therapist long before the movie’s final punch lands.

A self-destructive path is by its very nature an insane choice. Sane people seek options, trudge through difficulties to find solutions and discover ways to be guided by hope and life-affirming love.

People burdened by unbearable guilt or twisted by inadequate parenting or circumstances, like the characters in the film, need treatment – sometimes long-term and costly – to overcome the damage in their lives.

Others, like Sally Stultz’s son, born with brain function and chemistry already awry, need help to create constructive lives out of what they have left.

Stultz’s son loves music and the outdoors. His doctor believes he can complete an associate’s degree in a community college, make a fine forester’s assistant, one day live with some independence.

With adequate mental health coverage, that vision may yet come true.

If this child had heart disease, we’d spend whatever it took to save him. How can we say children like Sally Stultz’s son deserve any less?