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Ways
you can help
New
York State Parity Legislation: Timothy's Law
Below you'll find information about a number of things you
can do right now to to help get this important legislation
passed.
Join
Small Businesses for Timothy's Law
Are you a small business owner interested in recruiting
the best employees, improving worker productivity and staying
ahead of the competition? Timothy's Law can help you. Click
here to learn more.
Rally
in Albany
Every November, TLC supporters rally at the Capitol in Albany.
Visit the Timothy's Law website
for more information.
Join
Timothy's Team.
Join
the growing list of New Yorkers who support "Timothy's
Law" and want to act to ensure that it ends NOW. "Timothy's
Team" is a listserve that has been designed to
provide you with timely updates about what is happening
in the campaign and what steps you can take to aid in passing
this landmark legislation. In order to reduce the high volume
of e-mail that can result from a listserve, this list has
been set up as a closed list that only allows posts from
the moderator. If you would like to communicate an event
that is taking place in your area via the list, please send
a request to the moderator.
Contact
your representatives. Contact
your senator and assemblymember ask him or her to support
Timothy's Law.
To find out who your assemblymember or senator is, click
here --OR-- call the New York State Senate at 518.455.2800.
You may also want to write directly to the New York
State Senate and Assembly leadership, Senate Majority
Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon
Silver.
Please feel free to use the letters below as your guide:
DATE
Hon.
Joseph Bruno
Majority Leader, New York State Senate
909 Legislative Office Building
Albany, New York 12247
Dear
Senator Bruno,
Mental
health parity is good for New Yorkers and good for New York
businesses. I am asking you to pass a mental health parity
law that the O'Clair family would be proud to call Timothy's
Law and to work with the Assembly to ensure that we will
have a parity law enacted this year.
Working
New Yorkers will benefit from comprehensive mental health
coverage because they will be able to access mental health
services when they need them. In addition, good coverage
facilitates early treatment, which often prevents more serious
illnesses from developing. Without good benefits, employed
individuals and their families are often forced to forgo
needed mental health treatment, go into debt or, in the
worst cases, give up custody of their children to obtain
life-saving mental health services.
Good
mental health benefits are also good for businesses. While
untreated mental illnesses cost U.S. businesses billions
of dollars each year, research has shown that offering workers
comprehensive mental health coverage improves productivity,
makes businesses more competitive and ultimately improves
the bottom line. In an environment where health care costs
are skyrocketing, however, small business owners may be
concerned that mental health parity will dramatically raise
premium costs and increase the number of uninsured New Yorkers.
This
is not the case. Research has also shown that mental health
parity laws do not cost very much. Among the 35 states with
parity, all have seen increases in premiums of less than
one percent; some have even seen a reduction in premiums-
probably because good mental health coverage lowers overall
health care costs. It should be noted that the Federal Employees
Health Benefit Plan, which covers nine million lives and
is the largest parity experience in the nation, increased
premiums just .3 percent for managed care plans.
Good
mental health benefits are more than the right thing to
do-- they make good sense for families and good sense for
businesses. Please pass a mental health parity law this
year.
Thank
you for cosponsoring "Timothy's Law," a very important
bill that would require health insurers in New York State
to provide coverage for mental health and chemical dependency
treatment that is on a par with coverage for other illnesses.
The bill is named for Timothy O'Clair, a twelve-year old
boy who completed suicide after his parents struggled for
years to get him appropriate, affordable treatment.
Timothy's
Law, if passed, would eliminate arbitrary insurance barriers,
such as the restrictions on visits, higher co-payments and
deductibles that keep many New Yorkers from accessing medically
necessary mental health and substance abuse treatment. Passage
of this law would be a major step toward reducing the devastation
that occurs when mental illness is left untreated.
[Insert
one or two sentences about why Timothy's story and parity
matter to you and your family.]
We
are very grateful that you have chosen to cosponsor Timothy's
Law and look forward to working with you to secure passage
of this bill.
Sincerely,
******
DATE
Hon.
Sheldon Silver
Speaker,
New York State Assembly
932 Legislative Office Building
Albany, New York 12248
Dear
Assembly Speaker Silver,
Thank
you for supporting Timothy's Law. Mental health parity is
good for New Yorkers and good for New York businesses. I
am asking you to work with the New York State Senate to
pass a mental health parity law that the O'Clair family
would be proud to call Timothy's Law and to ensure that
we will have a parity law enacted this year.
Working
New Yorkers will benefit from comprehensive mental health
coverage because they will be able to access mental health
services when they need them. In addition, good coverage
facilitates early treatment, which often prevents more serious
illnesses from developing. Without good benefits, employed
individuals and their families are often forced to forgo
needed mental health treatment, go into debt or, in the
worst cases, give up custody of their children to obtain
life-saving mental health services.
Good
mental health benefits are also good for businesses. While
untreated mental illnesses cost U.S. businesses billions
of dollars each year, research has shown that offering workers
comprehensive mental health coverage improves productivity,
makes businesses more competitive and ultimately improves
the bottom line. In an environment where health care costs
are skyrocketing, however, small business owners may be
concerned that mental health parity will dramatically raise
premium costs and increase the number of uninsured New Yorkers.
This
is not the case. Research has also shown that mental health
parity laws do not cost very much. Among the 35 states with
parity, all have seen increases in premiums of less than
one percent; some have even seen a reduction in premiums-
probably because good mental health coverage lowers overall
health care costs. It should be noted that the Federal Employees
Health Benefit Plan, which covers nine million lives and
is the largest parity experience in the nation, increased
premiums just .3 percent for managed care plans.
Good
mental health benefits are more than the right thing to
do-- they make good sense for families and good sense for
businesses. Please pass a mental health parity law this
year.
Sincerely,
******************
Federal
Parity Legislation
The
Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act of
2005 (HR 1402 IH) was introduced in the House of Representatives
on March 17, 2005. This bill is named in honor of the late
Senator Wellstone, a longstanding champion of mental health
parity and other important mental health issues. In order
to ensure its speedy passage, advocates must let their representatives
know how they feel about mental health insurance parity.
To
find out more about this bill, please visit the the Library
of Congress's "Thomas"
online database and
do a search for "Wellstone" or "HR 1402 IH".
To
date, the U.S. Senate has not introduced a companion parity
bill. Call your senators and tell them that all Americans
need a mental health parity law.
To
locate all of your local elected representatives, click
here.
Share
your story with us
We
are collecting personal stories about how discriminatory
insurance policies make living with mental illness so much
more difficult for tens of thousands of families throughout
the United States. By combining real life stories with cutting-edge
research, we can build a compelling and indisputable argument
for mental health insurance parity. Please help us achieve
our goal.
If
you or someone in your family has had difficulty paying
for mental health treatment because your insurance company
would not cover mental health expenses at the same rate
as other health expenses, tell us about it. Please be as
detailed as possible when describing your or your family
member's experience. In addition to describing limitations
and/or financial requirements on mental health benefits,
we'd like to hear how these insurance problems have affected
your or your family member's recovery and the impact this
has had on family life and employment. (Send your story
to the NAMI-NYC Metro office, "ATTN: Parity Project"
or email Parity Project.)
For
assistance with any of the above, e-mail Wendy
Brennan or Jessica
Whalen or call 212.684.3365.
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