Last week’s Mental Health Awareness week was a student-led effort organized by a coalition of campus organizations and provided an opportunity for education, reflection, and community support. In addition, it also provided a timely opportunity to memorialize the late Senator Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash a year ago along with his wife, Sheila, their daughter, Marcia, and five others. In 1996, Senator Wellstone and Senator Pete Domenici, who both have families affected by mental illness, introduced the Mental Health Parity Act to Congress. It was offered to Congress in the hopes of ending the widespread insurance company discrimination faced by people with mental illness that denies them equal access to medical care. Common discriminatory practices include higher co-pays and deductibles for mental health patients, limitations on doctor visits and debilitating lifetime spending limits. Without adequate health coverage, many people with mental illness face unemployment, failure in the education system and homelessness. What parity legislation aims to do is eliminate this discrimination by requiring that insurance plans cover expenses related to mental illness to the same degree that they would cover physical health concerns. Four states (Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota and Vermont) have parity laws that apply to all mental health disorders under private insurance plans. It is our responsibility to see that Congress passes the re-named Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act, giving parity rights to families and individuals across the nation.

Passing this legislation is about more than just being fair. Supporting parity for recipients of mental health care addresses a pervasive injustice that was a cornerstone of Wellstone’s progressive vision for the country and his unwavering commitment to people over politics. In lobbying your representatives in Congress to make this into law, you are advocating on behalf of millions of mental health patients lacking adequate coverage. However, you are also carrying forward the Wellstone legacy, the intangible but wholly palpable force that has been driving Minnesotans (and the whole nation) to action in the past year. Ensuring a national mental health parity law, without exemption, is an action for justice and to remember those we’ve lost. Memorialize Paul Wellstone by employing his strong, often solitary voice for justice.

To lobby your representatives in Congress on this issue by sending a fax, visit www.wellstone.org and click on the end insurance discrimination link.