Congress Needs to Hear from Nurses THIS Friday, December 7 on Mental

[liberalnurse]

This Friday Dec 7, the American Nurses Association (ANA) is joining coalition partners in a nation-wide day of action to help advance crucial Mental Health Parity legislation. Mental Health Parity bills currently under consideration in the House and Senate would end longstanding insurance discrimination and remove barriers to care for those facing mental illness.

ANA needs your help to pass meaningful mental health parity legislation--please take part in the Day of Action THIS Friday, December 7 by calling your elected officials toll-free in support of Mental Health Parity.

Here's How:

1. Simply call the toll-free number 1-866-PARITY4
(1-866-727-4894)

2. Ask to be connected to your member of Congress (not sure who that is?
Enter your zip-code on ANA's online "Find Your Elected Officials" feature to find out).

3. Use or personalize this sample message:
"I am calling to ask the senator/representative to not let another year go by without passing mental health and addiction parity legislation. Please work with the Leadership to pass parity now."

4. Drop ANA Government Affairs staff a line at [e-mail] -- let us know that you took part. We would love to hear who you called and what, if any response you received from the office.

Background:

Mental Health Parity is under Consideration in both the House and Senate this year--these bills would prohibit insurers that offer mental health benefits from imposing financial requirements (such as deductibles, co-payments, and annual and lifetime limits) or treatment limitations (including limits on treatment frequency, number of visits and length of stay) that are more restrictive than those applied to medical and surgical coverage. ANA is committed to ensuring access to quality health care for all, and has expressed support for both the House and Senate parity bills (H.R. 1424/S. 558). It is critical that we end the longstanding insurance discrimination and barriers to care experienced by those facing mental illness, and ANA will work to advance mental health parity legislation that achieves this goal.

[EV_Ares]

1. Glad to see your post, I had just posted this comment in another thread;

Can you believe this country cannot do better regarding mental health. Granted,
it will not solve every person's problem, every incident like this but it will make progress in helping people to cope with problems they see as totally overwhelming them with no way to solve them, no help, no support. We need to do better and we can do better. Also, they need to force the insurance companies to start treating mental illness as they do other medical conditions.

It is so tragic how we refuse to face up to mental illness in this country.

[liberalnurse]

2. I believe Nurses and/or American Nursing Association

is the biggest associate advocate for Mental Health Issues.O8)

[NC_Nurse]

3. Will do. Thanks for posting this.

:hi:

[liberalnurse]

4. Time to Kick this for today!

:kick:

[LeftCoast]

5. Thanks for the heads-up. I will try and stay awake long enough to call.

Night shift sux. :)

:hi: