Why Do Ordinary People Pay For Mental Health Care

Mental Health coverage prior to the Affordable Care Act was far to none. With about nearly one-third of currently covered individuals having no coverage for substance abuse disorder services and approximately 20% having no coverage for mental health services. Services such as outpatient therapy visits, impatient crisis intervention and stabilization were among many that were not offered. Since the Affordable Health Care Act has been passed more individuals are able to afford health insurance that were once uninsured. It has helped many individuals in being able to obtain medical services that were once inaccessible.

One of the biggest contributors for poor healthcare is the stigma against mental health. This stigma allows healthcare providers to view those with a mental illness as having low relevance, thus creating disinclination towards providing adequate resources and/or care. This negative stance, based on misinformation and prejudice creates those that have a mental illness to lose their self confidence. Because of this loss, people with mental illness decide not to contribute to their health or livelihood. In the past fifty years, many advances have been made in mental healthcare. However, with the attached stigma, many people choose to not seek out treatment.

Mental health in America is a stigmatized topic that affects nearly 20% of the population and around 1 in 4 people will be affected by a mental illness at some point in their life (World Health Organization, 2010). However, due to the stigma behind mental health, people often do not seek treatment. As for the homeless population, the rates are much higher, with 1 in 4 homeless individuals living with a severe mental illness (Jasinski, Wesely, Mustaine, & Wright, 2005). These people and this population struggles to receive adequate healthcare, but with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or better known as ObamaCare, there have been positive change made to help these individuals. However, the ACA is not perfect and there are

Problem Statement: The World Health Association defines ‘good’ health as: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” However, in the United States, access to care and funding for mental health care are grossly neglected and underfunded in comparison to other aspects of health care.

Policy analysis of mental health care under the ACA as well as description of how mental health care/service are organized under the ACA from federal to local levels.

What is left is that we have many citizens who are mentally ill and are not receiving treatment. However the patients who are able to receive treatment are only able to have some treatment covered. Health insurers are responsible for covering the immensely large cost of substantial treatment, a mixture of medication and therapy; since therapy is highly priced, less reliable, and time consuming; patients typically do not receive treatment for therapy. Health insurers would much rather cover medication because it is cheaper, it heals patients faster, and it is more reliable than therapy. However, medication is not made to heal, but to only coax symptoms of a mental illness (Sandberg).

In today’s society there is a greater awareness of mental illnesses. With this greater awareness one might assume that there would be a substantial increase in government involvement or funding in the area of mental illness treatment. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in the U.S. today. There are hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness that go untreated. These potential patients go untreated for many reasons. These reasons are discussed in the Time article “Mental Health Reform: What Would it Really Take.

Before 1996, health insurance companies were able to set their own arbitrary restrictions on how much mental health coverage an insured individual receives. Often coverage for mental healthcare and substance abuse treatment such as therapy sessions and hospital visits was severely restricted. As a result, many people did not seek treatment for their mental health or substance abuse issues, even if they were in desperate need of professional help (Foundations Recovery Network, 2016).

Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance pay for mental health services; however, out-of-pocket payments were the highest form of payment for adults and children receiving psychiatric care. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), which is a resource that provides information regarding health services of the United States, had published explaining that out-of-pocket payments for mental health services increased from 35.2 billion dollars in 1996 to 57.5 billion dollars in 2006 1. In the study “An Examination of Costs, Charges, and Payments for Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment in Community Hospitals”, the results found that Medicare and Medicaid cover about 50% of

Lack of access to mental health care and treatment is one of the top ten reasons that many mental health conditions go untreated. Many private and group health insurance plans only include minimal mental health care coverage or do not incorporate mental health care coverage at all. Over half of adult citizens of the United States of America, who possess a mental illness, do not obtain mental health care treatment. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one out of every five adults in America have endured their own mental health difficulty, and one out of every twenty-five American adults suffer from a severe mental illness, such as major depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. (Top 5 Barriers to Mental Healthcare Access, Social Solutions.com, 2017)

Twenty percent of American adults have some sort of mental health condition, and worse, fifty six percent of them have not received treatment. Getting a job with a mental illness seems an impossible task; only one in one thousand individuals in the workforce has a mental health condition (MHA). If cared for, these thirty six million untreated citizens could gain jobs and earn money. Obviously, money presents a tremendous issue. Most therapists charge seventy five to one hundred dollars per session, and many people will visit therapists consistently for years (Cohen). Without a job, those with mental illnesses cannot get treatment, but without treatment, they cannot get treatment. America can eliminate this vicious cycle easily by offering universal healthcare. If therapy becomes free, or offered at a reduced cost, reducing symptoms of mental illness, and therefore getting jobs more easily, becomes much more

Just last year 1 in 5 Americans suffered from mental illness. Everyday Americans and people in other countries are suffering because of mental illness and they should be treated to matter the cost. Mental health has just as much effect on the body as does physical health. Which that comes to my essential question. Should health care companies cover mental health treatment? One side says yes because that would help millions of people with getting treatment because the cost is too extensive for them. But on one side of the claim some people say that the cost is too severe to cover everyone’s mental health treatment through insurance. Nevertheless, It is extremely essential that no matter the cost that people are being treated for their mental illnesses. Many people are suffering from unfair treatment from insurance companies with mental health issues to prove that I will talk about that people really do suffer, that mental health patients really do want help and lastly that it is legally deemed to be treated the same insurance wise.

Access to mental health care is not as good as than other forms of medical services. Some Americans have reduced access to mental health care amenities because they are living in a countryside setting. Others cannot get to treatment for the reason of shortage of transportation or vast work and household tasks. In some areas, when a

The most prominent theme surrounding mental health access is the lack of affordability for individuals. In an age where universal health care is a radical idea, money that is budgeted to increase mental health accessibility is often limited. Individuals often believe that their healthcare option is too expensive; consequently, they hold onto the idea that mental services would be costly as well. Individuals opinion on health access as a whole influences their perception of mental services because as seen expressed with the myth of public cost to the public, the public would not eagerly support funding another health care program without viewing data that demonstrates that investing money now will help save money in the long run. (Saeco 2010) argues that the participants in this study agreed that they could not afford services because they had insurance policies which would not cover the financial costs covering their mental health services. (Saechao 2012) Also sheds light that one factor that leads to an individual untreated mental health in a community setting is the lack of knowledge of the available little to no cost clinics funded by local governments. While one financial barrier is the cost of therapy, another charge

There are great health care benefit programs for employees in most organizations. However, the age limitations are causing serious concerns when it comes to mental care for dependent adults over the age of 26. This needs to change, as mentally ill patients over the age of 26 are left without healthcare insurance; which is never a good thing. Mentally challenged individuals deserve to be protected and covered as dependents under their caregiver’s insurance plans as long as they live. The term dependent should not be restricted to an age, but rather be a term that defines the individual who is unable to provide for themselves due to some mental disorder. Therefore, if organizations change their policies and include the mentally ill as a dependent regardless of age, then, it is likely for economies to see declining crime rates, less cost to taxpayers for essential services, and better overall rehab facilities.