Let's have a party!

Here's my political rant for the week (they'll pop up a few times between now and November 4th)

Today the House passed the much talked about "bailout bill". I'm excited about this. While I think the bulk of the bill is crap and that we shouldn't pay for banks' mistakes, it was inevitable that something like this would go through. Thus, I've found my peace with it in a tiny little amendment the Senate quietly tacked on - in all actuality, this amendment was the basis of the original bill that the bailout package was added onto. So while the bill has been deemed the "Emergency Stabilization Act of 2008" it started out as the "Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2008", which requires private insurance companies to cover mental health and addiction services on parity with medical surgical services. This includes treatment limits, co-pays, deductables, inpatient services (both in and out of network), emergency services, and out of pocket maximums.

This is huge. Our mental health coverage is horrible, as is many other Americans'. If the bill had been in effect in the past 10 months we'd have saved over a thousand dollars, and it will save us hundreds of dollars in future years as well. And there are many people out there that have worse coverage and more need for services, so I'm telling you I could practically throw a party with balloons and streamers and hats and cake.

Additionally, the Act also prohits insurance companies from discriminating against individuals based on genetic information - i.e. they cannot increase premiums, drop coverage, or evaluate enrollment eligibility based on the presence of a gene linked to any specific disease.

This is also huge - my Aunt has Huntingtons disease, which is passed on genetically. Each child has a 50/50 chance of getting the gene, and research shows that you cannot be a carrier - the gene is ALWAYS expressed. Thus if you have the gene, you will develop the disease. My Aunt and Uncle have three children. The oldest tested positive for the gene, but she's the only one who's opted to be tested, partly because of the possibility of discrimination based on the test results that can and does occur. So it's a little weight off the shoulders of those who have not been tested because they no longer have to fear loss of health coverage.

Anyway, I'm excited about that ammendment. There's a couple other ones that are good too - the ones that will actually help everyday Americans - but there's a lot of junk in the rest of it. I guess you sometimes have to trade the good for the bad.

So I've decided Congress isn't completely evil - at least not this week. Now if we could only get the legislative branch to follow suit...then I'd really have to throw a big bash!