This is a quiet story. One that has been lost in the shuffle of all the other circus 'acts' and train wrecks that have our eyes glued to the media and blogs, but when I read it, I realized that somewhere deep in the hundreds of pages on the 'official bail out package' there was a small piece of hope that had somehow survived, despite the monumental efforts to make this bill disappear.
Please note that this bill, has finally been approved after 12 long years of Bi-partisan effort towards the single most basic human right to extend benefits to those that cannot speak for themselves, the mentally ill of our country.
Currently Pete Domenici is suffering from an incurable brain disease, Ted Kennedy is suffering from brain cancer, and of course, the late great wonderful Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash. Please join with me below the fold to find out more about this bill that was part of our 'pork' that to me, should have been called instead, the "Lobster with butter" part of the 'bail out.'
Patrick Kennedy has carried on this work, and just to provide you with a little bit of history take a look:
In April 1996, Sen. Pete Domenici stood on the floor of the Senate and told colleagues "now is the time" to pass legislation requiring insurance companies to cover mental illnesses just like other medical conditions.
Mr. Domenici and Mr. Wellstone won that Senate vote in 1996. But their provision dropped out of the legislation after negotiations with the House, with opposition from insurance companies and their allies in Congress blocking the effort. The two men squeezed a pared-down version into a spending bill later that year that "dramatically reduced our expectations and our hopes," Mr. Domenici said at the time. The fight stalled for years largely because of opposition from Republicans who controlled the House.
Mr. Domenici, 76 years old, is retiring after being diagnosed with an incurable, degenerative brain disease. Mr. Domenici's memory sometimes fails him now. But he recalls a speech from 1996, when he sought to attach the measure to a health-insurance bill. "You could feel the Senate just throbbing when I was down there giving a speech, about a great country being so far off on mental illness that it's pathetic...like we had no brains," Mr. Domenici said. In October 2002, Mr. Wellstone was killed in a plane crash. Mr. Domenici asked Sen. Kennedy to replace Mr. Wellstone as the bill's co-sponsor. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D., R.I.), Sen. Kennedy's son, had proposed similar legislation in the House, along with other Democrats and Republicans, including Rep. Jim Ramstad of Minnesota.
From 2004 until 2006, the lawmakers negotiated with health insurers and industry groups that had successfully blocked the legislation before. The talks took place usually in a conference room in Mr. Domenici's office that has scenes of New Mexico hanging on the walls. By early 2007, all sides found a compromise they could support. The bill passed the Senate in September 2007. In March 2008, the House passed its own bill, but it contained provisions the health-insurance industry opposed. In June the two chambers argued over whether and how to pay for the roughly $3 billion cost of the legislation.
Two weeks ago, the effort was on the rocks, stuck in tax legislation that was locked in a standoff between the Senate and House. Mr. Domenici, walking through the Capitol, seemed resigned: "Either it happens or it doesn't. I've done the best I could," he said. "This is a tough one that should have been easy." Then: a final reprieve. After the House failed to pass the Bush administration's financial-rescue plan, the Senate decided to sweeten it with the troubled tax bill, including the mental-health measure. Mr. Domenici said it is hard to believe his Senate career is over. He said his illness, which affects the frontal lobe of his brain, hasn't caused the rapid deterioration doctors warned him about. He is thinking of working when he goes back to New Mexico, at his son's law firm. His wife "knows I better find something to do." Mr. Wellstone's son David visited Mr. Domenici recently. The mental-health bill is named after both men. "He hugged me and said how glad he was I was involved in this, how proud he was to have his father's name next to mine."
I don't know about any of you Kossacks, but I would have gladly voted to pay for 700 billion dollars for the mentally ill in our country. After Reagan closed all the mental hospitals and facilities throughout America, that is what started the horrifying de-institutionalization and thereby began the saddest part of this 'wonderful' Reagan 'reform' and that today is called the huge and growing problem of the homeless people who are living on the streets. Our cities such as Portland, Oregon, New York City, and especially in the warmer climates have 'tent cities' set up everywhere. Many of these people are not only mentally ill, they are often a danger to themselves and others. I always felt that when Hinkley shot Reagan, it was as if Karma was speaking as loudly as it could at that moment in time. The mentally ill, by the way, include people that have serious addition problems such as alcoholism, drug additions, food addictions and so many other problems that have been ignored or stigmatized by our low information citizens, and of course, the insurance companies gladly ignore any health condition they can get away with, despite the fact that the majority of the mental health associations and doctors diagnosed alcoholism as a disease in 1957. The statistics on the lost in 'productive employees' and money due to these various diseases is staggering.
You see, I come from a very big Irish family, like the Kennedys. And I'm broken hearted to tell you, that most of them have died from alcoholism and drugs. I stay away from these things, because I understand the genetic statistics and trans-generational likelihood of how this works in families. One parent an alcoholic: you get a 70 percent chance you will carry the gene, if you have two parents, it's about 130 percent. Yet, if other diseases such as type 1 diabetes is passed down to a child, there is no stigma attached. Yet it is the stigma attached to addiction, that keeps millions, yes literally millions from going for help. There are approximately 30 million Americans (low estimate) that are addicted to alcohol or drugs, yet only 5 percent of these people will go for help, and most of this 5 percent are court ordered to go for help. That is a tragedy and we must remove the stigma so that people do not feel ashamed to face the fact that their illness is just like any other illness and they should never again be discriminated against. Everyone deserves health and mental care. It is a basic human right for all human beings, not just for those that can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in 'celebrity dry out spas'. People are people and disease is treatable if we have the courage to face the insurance companies and demand fair care for all illnesses.
I'm proud of Domenici, Wellstone and of course both Kennedy's for hanging in there, for never giving up on this legislation and getting it passed. Although the bill that was passed is for 3 billion dollars, I hope that the money will be well spent, and based on this passing of the bill, I have hopes now that it may be continued now that this first hurdle was courageously and persistently fought for with men who truly puts their hands across the isles for something bigger than themselves.
It was the one and only thing that made my heart shine in what was the single most shameful act of the Congress this past week. God bless all these men for never, ever giving up to shield the sick and act as statesmen should act, with integrity and humanity in their hearts.
Thanks for listening. I wanted a light in my heart this week full of darkness and foreboding. I found it in these men that stood together and reminded me that there are 'some good ones out there.'