Health insurance ought to cover mental illness

Mental health 

Mental health care should be covered on all health insurance policies just as specific medical care is. Mental health can be more devastating than many physical ailments, but many people are not able to seek help for these problems because services cost too much money and are rarely available, with many health insurance providers making it nearly impossible for many families to seek help.

 Having acute mental health problems can affect a person’s life in many ways. First it can make them have internal problems and negative cognitions that make them feel horrible about themselves. This will continue to bring them down farther and farther until they are able to seek treatment. Mental health can also have a huge impact with school work or in the job force. The person enduring a mental illness may not do as well in these environments if they are silently suffering with their mental health. Having stress and bad mental health can also lower your immune system and cause a person to get physically sick more easily. 

Without affordable treatment they may feel alone and helpless, and they may develop worse relationships with their loved ones because of what they are experiencing. These things can lead to hopelessness, suicidal ideations, drug abuse, or other escapes from the pain sought out by the person with the mental illness.  Mental health is a very serious problem that many people have experience with, either by knowing someone with these problems or they themselves have experienced mental health problems. 

I personally believe mental health is more debilitative than some of the sicknesses that are covered on insurances. For example, many insurances will either cover prompt care completely or only have the patient pay a small cover fee if they have a cold, or any other small ailments that the patient is seeking medicine for. Having a mental illness, however, is not seen as important to many individuals. I believe this is because many people do not see the person suffering as much as they do with a physical illness, and they understand the physical illness better than they might understand the torments of mental illness. 

Some people also think that the mentally ill just need to be happy, or stop worrying etc. and think it is an easy fix, which it is not. Mental illness can affect a person for the entirety of their lives if not treated, and many people do not understand this, which makes them feel more alone and causes them to experience a lower quality of life satisfaction. 

This could change if insurance could help cover mental health problems along with physical ones, because mental health is just as—or even more important than—physical health in its power to ruin life satisfaction and stability. Adding mental health coverage to all health insurance policies could dramatically lower suicide rates, and would help people who choose to use their insurance to seek help with finding healthy coping skills to better handle their life problems. After seeking help, they would more likely better provide for our community because they will be able to work more productively.