“This report says what I’ve been saying for years — mental illness is an illness, just as real and treatable as cancer or heart disease,” Roukema said. “Medical professionals and families of the mentally ill know it is not a character flaw or a figment of the imagination. Medical advances make appropriate mental health care as effective as insulin for a diabetic. Most people who suffer from mental illness can live normal lives if they receive treatment.”

 “Unfortunately, most people can’t get treatment if their insurance won’t pay for it,” Roukema said. “Millions of hard-working men and women still find that their health plans place strict limits on both in-patient and outpatient coverage for mental illness. This type of discrimination is wrong and must end. Today's report will help spread that message."

 “I will use this occasion to renew my fight for passage of legislation to end discrimination against mental illness by health insurance plans,” Roukema said. “I will press Speaker Hastert and the Republican leadership for immediate action on this issue when the House reconvenes in 2000. The recent passage of a mental health parity law in California shows the growing support for this measure.”

 "Critics are concerned about the cost of mental health coverage," Roukema said. "The fact is that the cost is minuscule and would easily be offset by putting valued employees back to work at 100 percent of their capacity. Mental health parity would make early treatment possible, saving the high costs that come when a disorder is allowed to escalate.”

 Roukema, sponsor of the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Parity Act, was a participant in last summer’s White House Conference on Mental Health and is one of Congress’s leading advocates for insurance coverage for mental illness. Her legislation would bar insurance plans that provide mental health coverage from setting lower spending limits than those set for medical-surgical coverage. In 1996, Congress passed Roukema legislation that prohibited unequal limits on annual and lifetime spending levels for mental health care. The new legislation goes further by including substance abuse and addressing limits on the frequency of treatments, number of visits, co-pays, deductibles, out-of-network charges, and out-of-pocket contributions. 
  
 A recent study by the National Advisory Mental Health Council found full parity between mental health and medical-surgical coverage would increase health care costs less than 1 percent, Roukema noted. Another study found that depression results in 200 million lost workdays each year at a cost of $12 billion.