Take Me To Post Comment Form The Wall Street Journal headline on July 11 read -- “Congress Cuts a Deal for Mental Health Parity. Both Georgia Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson supported the passage of the bill. Senator Edward Kennedy returned to Washington for the first time since his brain surgery to vote in favor of this important legislation. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) called the bill “an enormous step.

We should be dancing in the streets over this piece of legislation! The mental health community has been talking about parity for years -- hoping and praying that some day, some way, our lawmakers would act on their understanding of the importance of equal medical treatment for those with mental illness.

The American Psychiatric Association estimates that 35 million Americans undergo disabling symptoms of mental disorders each year and that unequal treatment of mental illness reinforces the notion that somehow people with mental illness did something to deserve their fate, or that, if they really wanted too, they could be "normal." Such attitudes are discriminatory and harmful.

Imagine the public outcry if health insurance companies treated heart disease the same way they’ve been treating mental illness! People struggling with mental illness do not deserve that kind of discrimination. Some say the stigma of mental illness faded as people learned more about members of the armed forces returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental disorders. How ironic that the Iraq war has contributed to our understanding of mental illness!

Advances in medicine have also helped the crusade for parity. Today, the biological and neurological connection is well understood and we know that mental illness is as real and as urgent as a physical illness. Today, we even dare to think that we might find ways to prevent mental illness, uncover the causes, and even seek a cure.

We in NAMI Statesboro have longed for our family members to receive equal treatment for their mental AND physical ailments. Many have struggled to keep the balance -- within their brains and their checkbooks! Thanks to everyone who supported this legislation. It is an enormous step!