Sunday, August 24, 2008

Senator Joseph Biden, co-sponsor of the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Parity Act, is a strong supporter of mental health issues.

Senator Barack Obama just appointmented Senator Joseph Biden to be his Vice-Presidential running mate. So I decided to investigate Biden's voting record on mental health
issues
. Gratefully I discovered that he is a strong supporter of mental
issues and helping those suffering with a mental illness or a mood
disorder. Senator Joseph Biden was a co-sponsor of the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act.

Below is a letter from Senator Biden to the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) during his presidential bid:


December 30, 2007

Dear National Alliance of Mental Illness Membership,

Thank
you for the invitation to share information on my mental health
positions. Mental health is an important part of one's overall health
and deserves to be treated equally and be covered by health insurance.

It
is estimated that 26.2 percent of Americans over 18, approximately 57.7
million people, suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given
year. Even though mental disorders are widespread in
the population, mental disorders and people suffering from them face
great stigmatism and discrimination. We must work to reduce the stigma
attached to mental illness, and to create opportunities for people to
seek help and treatment for their illness.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said.