I chose an article by Ron Lieber from the New York Times published December 21, 2012. This article is about people not using the mental health care coverage that their insurance covers. Some of the startling information in this article include 26% of adults experience mental disorders in any given year, 6% of all adults experience a serious mental illness in any given year, and 21% of teenagers experience severe emotional prolbems between the ages of 13 and 18. In the past there has been less mental health coverage then there has been for other illnesses in health insurance, according to this article. Most health insurance companies have come around to covering mental illness. Still many people choose not to use the health coverage they already have. Some of the reasons people do not use their health insurance include people worrying about companies coming after them for mental health issues, not having enough mental health doctors who accept your insurance, the area where people live and the available doctors, and some people do not understand that mental health coverage is part of their insurance benefit package.

 

I believe it is true that companies could easily discriminate against people that go out and search for a psychiatrist to treat difficult problems. For example if your employer were to find out you were seeing a psychiatrist because you had an unhealthy attraction to children you could be fired instantly. Although, if your employer found out you are being seen because you had OCD and were cleaning your house too much they may not look at this negatively. So I believe this is true to a point. I also believe some people may not be seen by a mental health doctor because they believe it is not “manly” or “macho”. I have no facts or figures to back it up but I bet long-haul truckers probably would not go to see a psychiatrist for their loneliness or depression as much as college professors with the same insurance. In the article it talked about people that live far away from big cities not having doctors in their area. I believe this would also affect people's ability to go see someone for their mental health disorders. I'm sure if you had to drive many hours it would be unrealistic to think that you would go every week to see your psychiatrist. The other issue discussed in the article concerned not understanding what health benefits your insurance would pay for. I believe there is no excuse for not taking 10 min. to read your healthcare brochure. If you or your child needs mental health care is no different than staring at a broken arm all day and wondering how it's going to fix itself, the answer is of course it's not. Mental health is no different than any other health need it must be taking care of.