The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness
and
National Eating Disorders Associations STAR Program
States for Treatment, Access and Research
invite you to
Florida Eating Disorders Lobby Day
March 24, 2010
Tallahassee, Florida
We hope YOU will join us as we use our voices to advocate for eating disorders
and the“Coverage for Mental and Nervous Disorders” Act!
Transportation will be available from South Florida to Tallahassee
REGISTER TODAY!!!
Click link above to download Lobby Day Application
Schedule for March 24, 2010
7:30 - 9:30 am MANDATORY Lobby Day Training for everyone that will be lobbying
Courtyard Tallahassee Capital
1018 Apalachee Parkway
Tallahassee, FL 32301
Continental Breakfast will be served
10:00 - 2:30pm Office Visits/ Lunch on your own
3:00 - 4:00 pm Briefing
Hotel Information
If you are taking van sevice from Southeast Florida, we ask that you stay at Comfort Suites (which is right next door to the Courtyard Marriott Lobby Day Training). Rate are $155 per night for a double queen suite that sleeps up to 6 people.
For more information/reserve a room, please call 850.224.3200 or log on to Comfort Suites Tallahassee. Please reserve your room soon, as it is very busy in Tallahassee during this time and rooms are going quick.
Writing a letter
We encourage your to USE YOUR VOICE and write letters/make phone calls to your representatives. To find your representative, please visit The Florida House and type in your zipcode. Here is a sample letter that you can use, or feel free to write your own. Make sure to plug in your information into the letter. And don't forget, every voice, letter, phone call, etc. counts!
DATE
Representative FIRST NAME LAST NAME
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE ZIP
Dear Representative INSERT LAST NAME,
I am writing you in support of the mental health parity bill “Coverage for Mental and Nervous Disorders” (HB 7), which will provide equal health insurance coverage to individuals with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities as traditional medical services. As a constituent and someone who has been touched by eating disorders/mental illness, I am writing you today requesting that co-sponsor and support this very important bill.
In the United States, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Approximately 15 million more are struggling with binge eating disorder. Because of the secrecy and shame associated with eating disorders, it is very likely that many more go unreported. Eating disorders cut across race, color, gender and socioeconomic categories. No one is immune. Four out of ten Americans either suffered or have known someone who has suffered from an eating disorder.
Eating disorders are among the top four leading causes of burden of disease in terms of life lost through disability or death. They are complex mental disorders which manifest in physical symptoms.
Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, yet access to treatment remains elusive due to lack of awareness and obstacles to care. Without treatment, up to twenty percent (20%) of people with serious eating disorders die. With treatment, that number falls to two to three percent (2-3%).
It’s important to understand that eating disorders are NOT a disorder of choice and 50-80% of the risk of developing an eating disorder is GENETIC. Eating disorders are TREATABLE illnesses and with early intervention and assertive treatment patients can go on to full and healthy lives. However, many, many individuals throughout your district and the state are being denied the care they need to properly recover and live.
The “Coverage for Mental and Nervous Disorders” act will allow individuals proper access to the care that they need. Providing mental health insurance coverage will increase employee productivity, decrease absenteeism, and decrease the use of emergency rooms and medical resources. When mental illnesses are not treated, the cost implications for business and society are staggering, involving billions of dollars. We need parity in Florida now.
I ask you, Representative INSERT NAME, and call on the Florida Legislature to provide equality to all Florida patients – regardless of their physical or mental condition. Please consider co-sponsoring HB 7 today. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
NAME
ADDRESS
Important Facts:
• Without treatment, up to 20% of people with serious eating disorders die. With treatment, that number falls to 2-3%.
• Four out of ten Americans either suffered or have known someone who has suffered from an eating disorder
• Currently, treatment of an eating disorder in the US ranges from $500 per day to $2,000 per day—an all too often overwhelming cost to those afflicted.
• Studies conducted by the National Advisory Mental Health Council (NAMHC) demonstrate that the adoption of comprehensive mental health parity results in very modest cost and premium increases, and may actually even save money.
About Mental Health Parity
Compiled by Lara Gregorio, NEDA’s STAR Program
Mental health parity was an act initially introduced in Congress in 1996. It requires that mental disorders be treated equally, or on par, with physical disorders. Currently, insurance companies have the right, in many states, to refuse coverage for mental health treatment. For this reason, many people are denied care due to inability to pay, or are forced to spend large sums of money, to the point of bankruptcy in some cases, to obtain treatment. Under mental health parity, insurance companies are required to pay for care, as they do for strep throat, or even cancer.
Federal
For over ten years, there has been a mental health parity bill pending in the federal legislature, which would make it illegal for insurance companies nationwide to place dollar amounts, or limits, on treatment for mental illnesses. The House and Senate had been unable to agree, however, on the terms of the bill. This deadlock reached an end, as they came to a compromise in June 2008, the bill passed in November 2008, and went into effect on January 1, 2010. The final version of the bill was, indeed, a compromise, as it does call for mental health parity, but there are two major caveats.
First, the law leaves the definition of mental health up to individual states and insurance companies. This means that many states can continue to discriminate against individuals with some mental illnesses, and to deny treatment coverage to individuals with eating disorders, or other deadly psychiatric afflictions. If your state does not currently require insurance to cover eating disorders, they will likely be allowed to continue to deny those cases. The good news is that state laws about coverage, if more comprehensive than the federal law, will supercede the federal. This means, if your state currently does require coverage for eating disorders, it will continue to do so. Florida does not require coverage of eating disorders.
A second caveat is that although insurance companies will now be required to cover mental health, as they define it, and substance abuse equally with physical health conditions, they are not required to cover them at all. The law simply states that if a company covers mental health and substance abuse, it must be done on par. This is how eating disorder treatment can be denied.
State
As of July 2008, most states have adopted some form of parity. However, only 23 have comprehensive parity laws, the others have numerous restrictions. Some limit coverage to only specific insurance plans, or strictly define eligibility. Most states still can discriminate based on illness when it comes to psychiatric problems. Unlike physical problems, not all mental conditions are covered and eating disorders are illnesses frequently neglected. Currently 25 states include eating disorders in their parity legislation. Unfortunately, Florida is one of four states in the nation that does not have mental health parity and/or eating disorders parity legislation.
What can we do?
Florida House member Dr. Ed Homan and State Senator Victor D. Crist of Tampa have re-introduced Coverage for Mental and Nervous Disorders in the House and the Senate. (HB 07/ SB 182). This bill would revise requirements and limitations for optional coverage for mental & nervous disorders; repeal provisions relating to optional coverage required for substance abuse impaired persons; and provides for application. This bill includes treatment of “Eating Disorders” in the bill.
In hopes of getting this bill passed, The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness and National Eating Disorders Association’s STAR Program, are organizing a lobby day in Tallahassee on March 24, 2010.
To view the House Bill Click Here. To view the Senate Bill Click Here.
For more information and/or to get involved with Lobby Day, please email Johanna at jkandel@eatingdisorderinfo.org
Please join us and use your voice for change.
WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!