I know many private insurance companies consider mental health care a bottomless pit, as the costs can accrue quickly and snowball into group therapies, talk therapy, and a separate medication doctor (psychiatrist), if not more -- yet care for the mentally ill is still just absolutely insane here. If you have problems with depression, anxiety, etc., and try to get insurance after you develop those problems, forget it -- those pre-existing conditions disqualify or present prohibitive costs. And without insurance, you are stuck at bottom rung, folks-off-the-streets-talking-about-CIA-messages-wired-into-their-brains types of clinics. A lot of psychiatrists don't accept any sort of insurance anymore -- only cash.
If there were more parity for mental health in the US, in other words, I'd expect the costs Doug cited would be even higher. Harvard said if current trends continue, by 2020 or some time around then, clinical (major) depression would be one of the leading causes of disability in the US. Can find the study if anyone's interested.
-B.
Doug wrote:
"[Health Affairs article is at <http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/ content/full/hlthaff.26.6.w678/DC1>.] Obesity may push U.S. health costs above Europe: study"
Wojtek wrote:
"May be. But I think there are systemic incentives that reward the health industrial complex (hospitals, big pharma, and insurance companies) for costly and often unnecessary procedures instead of less costly (nut often more effective ones.)"