We win one for once

As reported in this AM's New York Times, Bailout Provides More Mental Health Coverage: some politically savvy folks managed to include a very important car to the $7,000,000,000 "socializing risk" train: "mental health parity."

Currently US health insurers can and do arbitrarily limit coverage of mental-health treatments (talk therapy, drugs, or hospitalization). The parity bill means insurers must provide equal coverage for mental and physical illnesses. The article claims implementation at start of 2010. I'm betting there will be many plenty court cases before then.

One caveat: "A breakthrough occurred when sponsors of the House bill agreed to drop a provision that required insurers to cover treatment for any condition listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association." Employer advocates complained that treatment should not be mandated for some conditions that DSM mentions, such as "caffeine intoxication" or "jet lag."

Revisions to create DSM-V are scheduled in 2012.

UK Disability Rights Campaigners

...are more effective at getting mainstream press coverage than their U.S. counterparts.

One example is this article from the British paper, The Independent. Ignored: the mentally ill killed by drugs that are meant to help them

"The basic fact is stigma kills; it is not just about calling people names. Stigma and discrimination stop people from getting an early diagnosis, the right treatment at the right time and from being monitored in the same way as other people are. And then after death, there is no standardised reporting mechanism to flag up issues for people with mental health problems who die young."

The "atypical" antipsychotic drugs, so recently touted as "second generation wonders," come with life-threatening side effects

People with mental health problems and learning disabilities die on average 10 years younger than the rest of the population, according to the Disability Rights Commission. Obesity, diabetes, certain cancers and heart disease are far more common among people taking psychiatric drugs. And those doing so are less likely to receive evidence-based health checks and treatments.