In 1996, Congress passed the Mental Health Parity Act, which was supposed to ensure that mental health coverage was treated the same as physical ailments, according to Dr. Paul Appelbaum.
“If a doctor doesn’t fully understand what’s going on, it’s a lot easier to put a label on it and say, ‘This is depression,’ instead of saying, ‘We don’t know,’” explains Dr. Carl Erik Fisher.
“The greatest cause of mortality in people with mental illness is suicide, which is viewed as a complication of mental illness,” said Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman.
“Ideally, none of us would engage in comparisons, period,” said Dr. Deborah Glasofer, who advises paying attention to what kinds of media make you feel good vs. crappy and curating along those lines.
Dr. Mark Olfson suggested one means of expanding mental health treatment is to train and empower primary care doctors to serve as front-line providers.
“Unlike homosexuality, we wanted to retain a gender category so that people could access services, and insurance coverage for hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries," said Dr. Jack Drescher.
“The fact that he's talking about suicidal thoughts and mental illness in this way is just the kind of thing we need to be talking about to help prevent suffering and suicide,” Dr. Kelly Posner says.
"Despite recent progress in increasing the likelihood that US adults with serious psychological distress receive mental health treatment, nearly 1/3 still receive no treatment," said Dr. Mark Olfson.
