Kent Conrad: “This amendment simply asks that mental illnesses be treated on a parity basis with other illnesses. It is inescapable…”

“This amendment simply asks that mental illnesses be treated on a parity basis with other illnesses. It is inescapable: An illness is an illness. There should be no differentiation between how we treat those who have a mental illness and a physical illness. When I was the assistant tax commissioner in North Dakota, Senator Dorgan was the tax commissioner. We had a young woman who was our receptionist. She was a beautiful and vibrant young woman. She was somebody who absolutely lit up an office. One day, she just went off the deep end with a mental illness that none of us knew that she had. Pictures were speaking to her. She had all kinds of aberrant thoughts. It led to her institutionalization. It led to her attempting to take her own life. That was a young woman, because of a suicide attempt, who did enormous damage to herself from which she will never fully recover. That young woman had a mental illness, and that illness deserved to be treated like any other illness. She is not alone. There are millions like her all across America.”