Better treatment urged for addicts
Two lawmakers give voice to cause
WASHINGTON -- Representatives Patrick J. Kennedy and James M. Ramstad, lawmakers who went public with their struggle with addiction, placed their strange-bedfellow friendship in the cause of better health insurance for addicts yesterday.
Ramstad, a Minnesota Republican and a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for more than 20 years, and Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat whose struggle with prescription drug abuse is more recent, joined several recovering drug addicts and alcoholics at a news conference that sometimes sounded like a 12-step program meeting.
The lawmakers called on Congress to approve legislation requiring insurance companies to cover substance abuse treatment. They want to wrap addiction treatment into a larger piece of legislation requiring that health insurers give mental illness the same kind of coverage they give any other disease.
Both the Democrat and the Republican said improved coverage would pay for itself because of the high social cost of addiction from disease, unemployment, crime, and prison.
The mental health-parity legislation has built significant bipartisan support in both the House and Senate in the past few years, but Republican leaders have not brought it up for a vote. Kennedy urged a vote next year.
The nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy has struggled with bipolar disorder and substance abuse problems for years. His difficulties came to light again when he drove his car into a concrete barrier near the Capitol in the middle of the night in May.
He later said he was disoriented because he took the sleeping pill Ambien and the powerful antinausea medication Phenergan. He pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs and agreed to treatment and community service.
