The Failing Mental Healthcare System in America

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The Insurance Companies

It's fairly well known that coverage for mental health care is sparse, even with the best of insurance plans. Attempts to fix this have been in motion for awhile and three years ago legislation was passed that required health insurance plans to "treat mental health care and ... substance abuse on par with physical illness." (14) Unfortunatly, this hasn't proven to be enough. Though it improved the situation somewhat coverage is still provided only at the very minimum - and that minimum is not enough. (14)
Even more recently, however, another more drastic step has been taken. On February 20th, the Obama administration announced a list of "essential health benefits" that insurance companies will be required to cover when Obamacare goes into full effect in 2014. This new legislation will cover 32 million people who currently do not have any and improve existing coverage for 30 million more in areas from mental health to substance abuse. It's not a final solution, however. The legislation is not nearly specific enough to provide perfect, uniform mental health coverage across the nation - many argue that too much is left up to the states. (15)

The Cost

Additionally, the legislation ignores the root of the problem itself. Insurance companies don't want to pay for mental health care and patients are unable to pay themselves because it is expensive. The main issue is that “not everyone can afford [it which] limits the clientele to a certain socioeconomic status.” (6) In fact, "could not afford the cost" was cited as the main reason among mental health patients for not getting the treatment they needed. (16)

The Stigma

The problem goes farther though. Cost isn't the only reason for patients not to get the care they need. "Culturally, the U.S. has a common stigma against people who pursue mental health services." After cost, major reasons for not getting treatment include things such as "might cause neighbors/community to have negative opinion," "did not want others to find out," or "might have negative effect on job." (16)

As a country with an abnormally high rate of mental illness (16), we need to look at the gaping holes in our mental health care system and pursue fixes to them. Cost and social stigma should not be barriers to needed care and we should strive to eliminate these.