When I read about the Supreme Court ruling upholding the
Affordable Care Act in King Vs Burwell, I thought of the impact from two
perspectives. First, a general sense of relief that millions of people would
not lose their health insurance subsidies, and then a more specific focus would
affect those suffering from behavioral health issues. Sometimes these numbers hit me with great
force. Nine million Americans suffer from a mental health or substance abuse
disorder. I begin to wonder, of those millions,
how many would be affected if the ruling was not in favor of the ACA
Then I inadvertently came across this story http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/23/living/feat-cnn-parents-facebook-chat-mental-health-addiction/index.html
and was happy to see that there are parents using social media as a means to spread
the word and be solution-oriented toward behavioral health issues. These
parents are communicating wonderfully with each other. Communication, in my opinion is half of the reason
for dysfunction in families to begin with. For many parents, including myself,
when we come across an article that talks about education and leading by
example as part of the solution to prevention or reduction of behavioral health
challenges, I feel incredibly frustrated for the parents out there who do
everything right and their child still struggles. While I think it is important
to promote parental education, it is also important to say that there are some
people who will struggle in spite of this. We as parents want to believe our
influence is so much greater than our own child’s innate wiring.
I am finding in any discussions around ACA, people tend to
think of behavioral health treatment as some sort of residential stay. At least
most people I talk to that are not in the Behavioral Health field seem to have
this perception, when most addiction treatment is outpatient and consists of
many hours of group and or counseling. Even this clinically lower level of care
is extremely costly to someone who has no insurance. A licensed therapist alone
will cost anywhere from $150-$250, depending on their credentials. See http://addictionblog.org/FAQ/costs/how-much-does-addiction-counseling-cost/
Now I consider of those nine million affected by behavioral
health. How many have co-occurring medical illness that requires ongoing or
acute care. The healthcare system has a long way to go in addressing solutions
such as treatment capacity and equal care for mental health and addiction, but
cutting off subsidies over a few ambiguous words would only have further
exacerbated a broken system.
Dorene Kinloch
Communications Specialist
NCADD-NJ
