Law brings parity for mental health

For mental-health advocates across the country, the real news out of the nation’s capital on Friday wasn’t the $700 billion bailout package for the financial industry.

It was the federal health insurance parity law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush as part of the bailout bill.

By DIANE COCHRAN
Of The Gazette Staff

Full Story: http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/10/07/news/local/27-mentalhealth.txt

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Bailout Provides More Mental Health Coverage

By ROBERT PEAR

More than one-third of all Americans will soon receive better insurance coverage for mental health treatments because of a new law that, for the first time, requires equal coverage of mental and physical illnesses.

The requirement, included in the economic bailout bill that President Bush signed on Friday, is the result of 12 years of passionate advocacy by friends and relatives of people with mental illness and addiction disorders. They described the new law as a milestone in the quest for civil rights, an effort to end insurance discrimination and to reduce the stigma of mental illness.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/washington/06mental.html?ei=5070&emc=eta1