Psychiatrists are presently trying to push through Congress a bill called "Mental Health Parity" which puts mental health on a footing with conventional medical care. This is in spite of the fact that mental "diseases" are a matter of opinion, and can't be proven or disproven scientifically. With a free ticket to treat anyone who has a mental disease, all any mental health practitioner has to do is opinionate that someone has xxx wrong with them, and the bill gets paid by insurance companies. It would be impossible, or at least fraud, for a doctor to claim you have appendicitis when you don't and charge for an operation. But in the murky world of mental health, the situation is much more ambiguous. Here's a letter from the president of the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights regarding lobbying efforts to defeat this bill. It includes a request for help. Do so if you can.
The billing bible would be DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Edition IV) which lists all the supposed psychiatric illnesses. The disorders in this manual are put there by vote, literally. By a show of hands. Someone makes a speech about some new mental syndrome at a national convention, then the people present vote on whether that syndrome should be included as a legitimate psychiatric disease! No blood test, no CT Scan, nothing. Just opinion.
Dear Friend and Supporter,
The federal Mental Health Parity bill is rearing its ugly head once again – and this time it’s closer than ever to being passed. In fact, the Senate has already passed their version of the bill, and the House has passed it through one subcommittee and a full committee. It is expected to come to the floor of the House for a vote within the next two weeks! Mental Health Parity in the House bill (H.R. 1424) would mean that insurance should be mandated to cover treatment of all 374 mental disorders in psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) at a cost of more than $23 billion to taxpayers over the next 10 years.
Psychiatrists now market the bogus idea that DSM-IV disorders such as “Expressive Writing Disorder,” “Mathematics Disorder,” “Caffeine Withdrawal,” “Phase of Life Problem,” and “Sibling Relational Problem,” are as legitimate as cancer and diabetes. By lobbying heavily for the political enforcement of these diagnoses through mandated mental health parity, psychiatry makes certain that millions of lives conform to its standard for "treatment" with drugs.
While these "disorders" could be considered laughable by any rational individual, if mandated mental health parity goes through with DSM-IV in it, psychiatry will be doing the laughing—all the way to the bank. None of the disorders can be medically proven.
Enormous pressure has been brought to bear on politicians by psychiatry's alarmist statements and statistics about the state of mental health in our nation. Members of the Senate passed their version of mental health parity, sensibly without covering the entire DSM-IV. However, the House version does contain DSM-IV and we need help to get it taken out of the bill!
Don’t underestimate the power that you as an individual can add to this forward push right now. With your help CCHR can take very aggressive action toward stopping this bill in its tracks as it is written.
To right this atrocity, we’re organizing professionals to go and educate members of Congress immediately with data on how absurd it would be to cover the entire DSM-IV. We’re also producing an updated White Paper on Mental Health Parity that will need to be printed and sent to every member of the House (all 435) early next week so they have the true data on what this bill, as is, will do.
This is a major battle. Win this one and we have a very substantial win for our families, our futures, and ourselves. Thus, we need as much help as we can get to pull it off. Donations of $1,000 or more receive a special commendation. Your donation could actually make the difference in whether or not we have that win.
Sincerely,
Bruce Wiseman
President CCHR for U.S.
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