Patrick J. Kennedy

No more separate and unequal treatment. No more separate and unequal medical records and secrecy.

I concur with Chairman Leahy when he said that Medicaid is the source of treatment for people with mental illness and addiction in this country, period.

I am planting my flag in the ground right here and right now, demanding Congress allocate no less than $25 billion in supplemental appropriations to address these crises.

We need to do something extraordinary, and it ain't going to be... just borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Declaring a PHE alone without a Stafford Act declaration amounts to nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

WE CANNOT CUT FUNDING TO MEDICAID. That is not a political statement, it is a practical one.

There should be a central clearinghouse for--essentially, a database for issues and complaints that arise.

Parity, the simple idea that substance use disorder and heart disease should be treated the same is the law.

So we would definitely favor clearer information be given to consumers and also clearer information on where people can get help if they don't feel equipped to try to understand the materials that they are given.

But the complexity can't be the barrier to information for a patient to be able to get access to that care.

That lack of enforcement and transparency has devastating consequences.

We are allowing insurers to hide behind a curtain of proprietary information and a broad language of denial.