Illness is illness. Those who struggle with mental illness ought not be treated as second-class citizens by the health insurance industry. They ought be entitled to the same benefits as those who experience physical illness. A bill is currently making its way through Congress that would help to remedy the current inequity in insurance coverage. It is a long overdue step in a healthier direction.

From the McClatchy Newspapers:

A mental-health insurance parity bill might finally pass Congress

He was a pioneer by circumstance, not by choice.

But 35 years after former Democratic Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri was forced to abandon his bid for vice president after he disclosed that he’d been treated for depression, politicians no longer keep their and their families’ battles with mental health in the dark.

In a speech on the Senate floor in January, Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon said there was an epidemic of youth suicide that “begins as depression and sometimes leads to tragic results.” His 21-year-old son killed himself in 2003.

The stories are familiar. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said his father committed suicide and that it took him a long time to acknowledge it in public. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said her father was diagnosed as manic-depressive and that her family didn’t even know what it meant at first.

Buoyed by such personal testimonies, a bipartisan coalition in Congress is pushing to pass a mental health-parity bill, which would require group health plans to offer similar coverage for mental and physical illnesses. It no longer would allow insurers to have different co-payments, deductibles and out-of-pocket limits for mental health benefits and medical/surgical benefits.

One of its chief sponsors in the House of Representatives is Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., who checked into a clinic in Rochester, Minn., for drug treatment after he fell asleep and crashed his car near the Capitol last year. He’s struggled with depression and drug addiction since he was a teenager.

Passage of the bill would be a major victory for mental health advocates, who’ve been lobbying hard for years. They say the 1972 disclosure by Eagleton, who died of heart and respiratory ailments last Sunday at age 77, was the opening salvo in the long national debate. [full text]