Mental Health Parity

That which is important to you, will determine what political domains you follow. Seeing as though i am going into mental health care, health care issues pertaining to mental health have caught my attention. Mental health care in general has always taken a beating, starting in the 1950's with the introduction of psychotropic drugs, New York in particular saw psychiatric institutions close one by one. Now what remains are empty buildings best known by local teens as "haunted" asylums. What they call haunted by the way i call homeless individuals stealing copper from abandoned buildings (but i wont got there). This was in my opinion the beginning of the end. Yes,they have made many advances for treatment of the mentally ill-- but still-- the delivery of service is so underdeveloped. Recently talks about the mental health parity have been a topic of discussion. This parity is designed to bring mental health care up to par with that of any other health service...that is of course for a limited population. Mental health care is so important, not to mention how much money we y save society. Think about how much money substance abusers cost for instance. They will accumulate costs in their pockets, the government pockets, and your pockets. Substance abuse is highly correlated with costs to our correctional departments, health care, educational system, insurance etc... there is a wide spread effect of these peoples action. So why not open up access to mental health care early on, so that if one feels as though they may want help, they can get it, something i feel very strongly that every individual deserves.