Capital Times, The (Madison, WI) Published on February 13, 2002 © 2002- Madison Newspapers, Inc.
By Mary Conroy
Memo to state Rep. Gregg Underheim, Chair, Committee on Health, Wisconsin State Assembly.
Re: civil rights. For the fourth time, your Committee on Health entertained testimony regarding an important civil rights issue Tuesday.
You told witnesses on behalf of civil rights they weren't being specific enough about exactly what's wrong with Wisconsin statutes now. You told the witnesses they had done a "lousy job" of presenting their case. Like those who testified against the bill, you were mired in the muck of costs.
Speakers told you of friends and relatives who'd died because state statutes denied their civil rights. I can't believe that you, state Rep. Underheim, had no compassion for the deceased and their families. I think you're a kind, intelligent guy. But what part of civil rights don't you understand?
I'm speaking, of course, of SB 157, which would provide equality in insurance coverage for people with mental illness. Under the bill, insurance companies that provided health insurance would have to provide the same benefits across the board, whether someone was being treated for cancer or for depression. If an insurance company allowed only $2,000 per year for outpatient visits for mental health, it would also have to limit radiation and chemotherapy treatments to $2,000 per year.
That's what the bill provides. Period. It doesn't provide more treatment for those of us with brain disorders than for those with other physical disorders. It simply states that Wisconsin, like 31 other states, does not discriminate against people with mental illness.
(I'm part of that "us." I have major recurrent serious depression. Like other people with mental illness, I'm just asking for an equal chance.)
Tuesday's session got bogged down in costs, costs, costs. But that track is missing the point. Here's what Wisconsin statutes do now: They require insurance companies to provide a minimum amount of coverage for mental health. But insurance companies use those figures as a maximum. Once you've reached $7,000 in inpatient mental health care in one calendar year, you pay the rest out of pocket. Imagine how far $7,000 would go for heart disease. Doctors would stop midway through heart surgery and say, "Oops. Wake the patient. See if he can pay for the rest of this. Check his credit rating."
I'm just trying to understand what you don't understand, state Rep. Underheim. Here's what I understand: SB 157 has wide bipartisan support. We who have mental illnesses pay the same amount in premiums, year after year after year, as people who don't have mental illness. Yet the state of Wisconsin allows insurance companies to take as much money from us, for severely restricted benefits, as it takes from people who may need $200,000 in a few weeks to be treated for other life-threatening illnesses.
And how is it fair for you to keep the full Assembly from voting on this issue? State Rep. Underheim, you haven't even allowed your own Health Committee to vote on it. How is it fair for you to spend so much taxpayer money on hearings year after year after year?
On Tuesday, you heard from Darlene Reiter and Gwen Thompson, both taxpayers who pay for insurance but have been discriminated against. Another person who uses mental health services put it very plainly. "My life is in your hands," Cris Weber-Rogers said. "I'm a mother of two children ... I want them to have a mother - a healthy mother."
You also received testimony from Robert E. Wrenn. While he supported many other reasons for passing SB 157, his testimony came down to this: "I am here to urge passage of the Parity Bill because the present law makes it the public policy of Wisconsin to discriminate against people with mental illness. This offends my sense of morality and it should offend the sense of morality of every lawmaker in our state."
If you want to offend the morality of most people in the state, don't bring SB 157 to a vote in your committee, state Rep. Underheim. If you'd prefer to be known for your own sense of morality, bring the bill to a vote now.