Patrick Kennedy: “It is true that, this week, we are celebrating the Mental Health Awareness Month, and it is appropriate as we celebrate…”

“It is true that, this week, we are celebrating the Mental Health Awareness Month, and it is appropriate as we celebrate it, to reflect on what we are doing as a Nation to address mental illness in this country. We have 271 cosponsors of mental health parity legislation in this House. We have 71 cosponsors in the United States Senate for mental health parity. We have 368 sponsors by national organizations endorsing mental health parity, and yet, mental health parity legislation is bottled up in committee. Mental health parity legislation is very basic. It simply says that mental illness is treated as every other physical illness. And if anyone had a doubt that mental illness is not a physical illness, if their common sense did not tell them this, well, we have reams of evidence and knowledge supporting it. Even the Surgeon General Carmona and the former Surgeon General Satcher have released very extensive reports about the need to address the problem of mental illness in this country.”