Workers with company-paid health plans want treatable mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and major depression to get the same coverage as physical aliments such as diabetes and epilepsy. Anything less, they say, is discrimination. Some employers fear that parity for mental illnesses would produce run-away costs. Lobbyists say this would force firms to drop all mental-disorder coverage, harming other Oregonians. However, fewer than 1 percent of companies dropped coverage as a result of the 1996 federal parity law.
Overwhelming evidence shows that insurance parity for mental illness is cost-effective.
Legislators here, though are set to keep our separate and unequal system. Public opinion and cost aren't valid alibis for delay or piecemeal action. A 1999 survey of 500 voters conducted for the Oregon Medical Association by Moore Information found that 85 percent favor or strongly favor requiring insurance companies to pay the same level of benefits for mental and physical illnesses. The human face of our lawmakers' embracing old error rather than new truth is grotesque, too. Families in Oregon run out of mental illness insurance every year.