Patrick J. Kennedy

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

I do not know how anyone can decipher this broken system, and there is no independent arbiter within the executive branch to handle these kinds of issues.

I hope also that transparency can occur. It is America that is suffering when we are not allowed to do the job.

I just think if we are going to do this and we are going to put our Secretaries of State and our national leaders under the microscope, it shouldn't be just... the Democrats under investigation.

the whole system of classification in my opinion needs desperately to be reformed.

Serious mental illness is a brain disorder, and we must come to terms with this critically important fact...

the essential message we need to come out of this hearing is that these are real physical illnesses, and they need to be treated with the same urgency that we would treat cancer or any other fatal or disability in this country.

I don't think there is a person in this country that wasn't moved by your tragedy, and what it speaks to all of us.

A lack of access to care has had a heartbreaking consequence across our country.

we can intervene early. We can save lives.

We could solve this crisis tomorrow if we intervene on first incidents of schizophrenia.

But, Patrick, it is largely to your efforts in Congress that mental health parity is much closer to becoming a reality today than it was a decade ago.