[Timothy's Team] Take 5 for Timothy!

[Michael Seereiter]

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TAKE 5 FOR TIMOTHY!


Please Take 5 Minutes to Call Your Senator and Assemblymember Each Day
Between Now and the End of Session Next Week to Urge them to Negotiate a
Version of Parity Legislation Tom O'Clair Would be Proud to Call Timothy's
Law

Senate Switchboard 518-455-2800
Assembly Switchboard 518-455-4100
Ask for Your Representative.  Don't know?  Go to
http://map01.elections.state.ny.us/boe/main.asp.

Tell them: 
"Don't leave Albany without having negotiated and enacted a version of
parity legislation Tom O'Clair would be proud to call Timothy's Law!"

 

And to illustrate that support for Timothy's Law remains strong, following
is the most recent newspaper editorial in support of our efforts to enact
mental health and addiction parity legislation.

Mental illness needs insurance
Poughkeepsie Journal Editorial   June 12, 2005 

A compromise plan on mental health insurance should be thoroughly reviewed
by the Legislature before it adjourns for summer break. New Yorkers deserve
no less.

Mental illness is a disease with huge fiscal and emotional impacts.
Providing adequate treatment is not only morally responsible but it is also
fiscally beneficial

Unlike 36 other states, New York does not require insurance carriers to
provide mental health coverage. Deep differences have divided Assembly and
Senate versions of a bill to require insurance carriers to treat mental
illness in the same way it treats physical illnesses. The Assembly has
resoundly supported the effort for the past two years, while the Senate
continues to have concerns about its effect on the business community,
particularly small companies.

The compromise plan unveiled last week allows companies with fewer than 50
employees to opt into the plan, rather than require mandatory participation.
That is a fair approach that would at least allow the majority of insured
New Yorkers to receive the coverage they need when it comes to mental
illness.

Currently, most insurance plans limit mental health coverage to a maximum
stay, and set number of doctor visits, regardless of the diagnoses. That's
not how any illness should be treated. Imagine limiting the number of
chemotherapy treatments for a cancer patient.

These limits leave patients and their families struggling to afford needed
care. The Assembly bill, Timothy's Law, is named for Timothy O'Clair of
Schenectady, who hanged himself just shy of his 13th birthday. Since he was
8 years old, his family had been dealing with his mental illness. Insurance
limitations made consistent care impossible and attempts to pay privately
simply couldn't continue.

Finally, like 3,500 other families in New York, the O'Clairs signed their
child over to the state so he could receive comprehensive medical care under
Medicaid. Progress was made, and after months in an inpatient facility, he
came home. But the disease again took over. The anger and rage returned. And
one night, after a fight about taking his medications, he went to his room
and the troubled child found permanent refuge by hanging himself from the
clothes bar in his closet. His mother discovered him, dead, a few hours
later.

The family insists if medical coverage had been available, their son would
have been helped instead of committing suicide.

A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers says parity, having insurance coverage
that treats mental illness the same as a physical illness, will cost an
additional 1.6 percent, or $15 a year per person. Insurance industry experts
says it could increase premiums 3.5 percent although states with parity,
have discovered no discernible impact on businesses.

If a society is judged on how it cares for its most vulnerable citizens, New
York has lots of room for improvements, starting with the medical coverage
it provides for the mentally ill. The Legislature needs to address this
disparity.

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