Dr. Gary G. Kohls

UPDATE: New Health Care Bill Drafted by House of Representatives Filled with Psycho/Pharma Agenda

There are dozens of organizations that are objecting to provisions in the health care reform bills. As the primary mental health watchdog organization, CCHR has been hard at work identifying the specific mental health provisions in these bills so we can inform the public of the very real risks of various aspects of these bills that clearly are designed to benefit the psycho/pharmaceutical industry, but not the general public.

Recently the U.S. House of Representatives passed by a thin margin (220-215) H.R. 3962, a bill laden with language and funding for the psycho/pharmaceutical industry, which has a vested interest in seeing every man, woman and child in America labeled with some mental disorder and prescribed psychiatric drugs. The provisions listed in that bill (posted here) run roughshod over American’s personal privacy and liberty. For example, the bill allocates up to $5 billion/year to fund School Based Health Clinics for children, which will include mental health assessments (screening), crisis intervention, treatment, counseling and referral to emergency psychiatric care. This is simply a feeder line for psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry directly into our schools.

The House bill (H.R. 3962) will eventually go to a conference committee, made up of Representatives and Senators, but only after the Senate passes its own bill. At that point the differences in the two final bills will be worked out. Therefore our focus is on what bill the Senate Leadership will pass. There are two Senate health care bills that are currently being merged into one bill, just as the House of Representatives merged 3 bills together to come up with the monster, 1990 page final H.R. 3962 “Affordable Health Care for America Act.”

We have listed the “mental heatlh” provisions in the two Senate bills below.

S. 1679 – “Affordable Health Choices Act’’

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill

Mental Health Parity

This bill expands the laws already on the books with regard to insurance coverage for mental disorders, stating that any new benefit plans shall include mental health parity, or equal (to physical disease) insurance coverage for mental disorders. Psychiatric patients are typically “cured” when their insurance benefits run out. In this bill, any new benefit plans would ensure those benefits never run out. Considering there are no medical tests to verify the existence of any psychiatric disorder, and without anything other than a psychiatrist’s opinion about whether or not the person’s “illness” is “cured,” this legislation becomes nothing more than taxpayer funded billions to the psycho/pharmaceutical industry who will continue their mass diagnosing and drugging of Americans. This provision could easily encompass all 374 diagnoses in psychiatry’s diagnostic manual, covering everything from Phase of Life Problem to Arithmetic Disorder. (Section 3101, Page 80)

Community Based Health Teams

The bill funds community based “Health Teams,” which will establish a system of early identification and referral for children “at risk” for developmental or behavioral problems. (Section 212, Page 340)

School Based Health Clinics

The bill allocates of up to $5 billion every year for School Based Health Clinics to provide such services as: mental health assessments (screening), crisis intervention, treatment, counseling and referral to emergency psychiatric care. (Section 312, Page 473)

Public Health Interventions

The bill creates a five-year program for the Centers for Disease Control to provide public health “interventions,” screenings and clinical referrals for individuals between 55 and 64 years of age. (Section 322, Page 495)

Paraprofessional Mental Health Workers

The bill also creates a new “paraprofessional child and adolescent mental health worker.” The legislation states that this is “…an individual who is not a mental or behavioral health service professional, but who works at the first stage of contact with children and families who are seeking mental or behavioral health services.” (Section 402, Page 579)

S. 1796 – “America’s Healthy Future Act”

Senate Finance Committee bill

MOTHERS Act

The bill includes the language of the MOTHERS Act, to “expand treatment for postpartum conditions” and calls for the development of “improved screening and diagnostic techniques,” but makes no provisions to ensure any entities doing such research are free from conflicts of interest or pharmaceutical funding. For example, Screening for Mental Health, Inc., and its sub-organization Signs of Suicide, who heavily promote and conduct mental health screening, received $4,985,925 from pharmaceutical companies prior to 2008, and ten leading psychiatric researchers have been exposed in the last year for failing to disclose millions of dollars in pharmaceutical company payments. Despite their conflicts of interest and biased research, many pharma funded psychiatrists and researchers have been used by so-called advocacy groups (Screening for Mental Health, NAMI, etc. which are also heavily funded by Pharma) to promote the need for federal laws that will only increase the number of Americans being needlessly targeted for psychiatric treatment and drugged. Yet this bill contains no provisions for full disclosure of conflicts of interest for any “entity” that could receive federal taxpayer funded grants, do research or promotional campaigns̶—such as the provision in the bill calling for a national PR campaign using TV, radio and other public service announcements to urge women be screened and seek treatment for postpartum depression. The bill also calls for “clinical research” for the development of new treatments (drugs), but again, no guidelines for ensuring that any researchers/research entities are free from pharmaceutical funding or conflicts of interest. (Section 1802, Page 480)

Mental Health Parity

The bill ensures that mental health parity (as above) is in place for all Medicaid recipients (those who are indigent or disabled). Psychiatric patients are typically “cured” when their insurance benefits run out. In this bill, at least for Medicaid recipients, those benefits never run out, and will expand the number of Medicaid recipients being diagnosed with fraudulent psychiatric diagnoses and put on very damaging psychiatric drugs. (Section 1601, Page 276)

Your voice needs to be heard in Washington NOW on these outrageous provisions in the bills. Call and fax your Senators and tell them that you are opposed to the above points in any of the health care reform bills. Pick at least three points from above that you feel the most passionate about and call your two Senators’ offices and let them know why you are opposed to these bills. Then fax them also.

To find your Senators and get their contact information, go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt to look them up (you need to enter your zip code). You can also call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

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Dr. Kohls is a retired physician from the Duluth, MN area who writes about peace, justice, mental health and religion.