Say goodbye to mental health insurance

You may have heard the good news just before the election: President Bush signed into law the “Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act” to ensure that every employer currently providing mental health insurance coverage as part of its benefits package offers an amount equal to its physical health package.

This is the kind of thing many Americans want to hear!

But you have to read the fine print to understand why this new mandate will likely spell the end of mental health coverage of many Americans.

First of all, before I get to the fine print, I do need to point out the thoroughly unconstitutional nature of this legislation. Nowhere in our Constitution does it authorize the federal government to get involved in providing health care for Americans and certainly not in telling businesses they must provide it. Then again, the Constitution is clear about who is eligible to be president of the United States, and we all know Washington did nothing to ensure the next one is a “natural born citizen.” And we all know just how little attention anyone in Washington pays to the strict limits the Constitution places on the central government.

So, back to the fine print.

This bill, signed in October, was passed by Congress as part of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. Why? Don’t ask me. It is totally unrelated. Presumably, it was just a way of ramming it through the House of Representatives. It may have even been a way of making the bailout more appealing. But, as you will see, this part of the bill is every bit as misguided and counterproductive as bailout of the mortgage industry.

The bill does not require employers to offer mental health coverage. Instead, it requires parity with other health coverage, including total coverage and the size of co-payments, if it is already offered by businesses with 51 or more employees.

Now, what do you suppose will be the result of this legislation?

I’ll tell you.

Those employers currently offering mental health coverage are going to be sorely tempted to drop it. I sure would if my company offered it. It means potentially spending as much on mental health coverage as physical health coverage. With the country in recession, how many businesses do you think are looking to spend more on health insurance?

This is what we refer to as an “unintended consequence” of do-gooder legislation.

But I’m honestly beginning to wonder if legislators and politicians can really be this stupid.

I honestly don’t think so.

I think a good number of them want to create chaos. I think they want to create more misery. I think they want to create crises. I think they must want more Americans to doubt they can take care of themselves without government intervention.

Watch what happens in the next couple years. I can predict it with certainty.

Americans are going to see their mental health coverage taken away. Then we will hear the horror stories of people stripped of their coverage by greedy businesses and corporations. It will fan the flames of calls for government to take over all health care.

That’s what many in Congress want to see.

They want you to depend on them. They want you to think you can’t get what you want without them. They want to condition you to believe the way you get what you want is by begging them.

Sadly, this conditioning and indoctrination is in an advanced stage in America. We have a large percentage of the public that doesn’t care about freedom or the Constitution or self-government. They just want their needs taken care of by someone – anyone. They don’t recognize the high cost of permitting the government to do it for them.

And when I talk about cost, I’m not just referring to higher taxes. I’m talking about your basic liberties.

That’s what is at stake as we continue to tolerate legislation like this.

This feel-good bill is going to inflict real pain – especially for people who want or need mental-health insurance coverage.

Mark my words. Remember where you heard it.

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