Kennedy scion urges mental health equity

LAS CRUCES — Like a penchant for politics, sicknesses including alcoholism, depression and heart disease have long run in the Kennedy family line. And yet, from an early age, Patrick Kennedy said, his doctors treated his physical health and ignored the very real risks to his brain.

Mental health care is still not equal to health care, Kennedy told more than a thousand people at the Domenici Public Policy Conference at New Mexico State University. And until it is, he said, mental illness will remain stigmatized and undertreated.

“The best anti-stigma campaign is when my children grow up and don’t know the difference between mental health care and health care,” he said in an emotional speech in which he shared his own struggle with addiction and mental illness.

Elected the youngest member of the House of Representatives at age 27 representing Rhode Island, Kennedy was a rising star when his struggle with bipolar disorder and addiction to prescription painkillers came crashing in on him. In 2006, he drove his car into a vehicle barrier on Capitol Hill and hours later publicly stated he would seek treatment for addiction.

He published “A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction” in 2015 and has become a vocal advocate for mental health treatment.

Kennedy has been stumping loudly for the government to enforce the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, co-sponsored by New Mexico’s former Sen. Pete Domenici, for whom the conference is named.

That legislation is supposed to require insurers to make access to mental health treatment no more restrictive than for physical ailments.

It says that “if you provide it for the cancer patient, if you provide it for the heart disease patient, if you provide it for the diabetic or any other physical condition ... you must do the same for the those suffering from chronic illnesses of the brain.”

“That means that we pay for all that chronic care and acute care that we have today,” he said. “We have people sleeping on our streets. We have people languishing in our jails. This is an indictment on our country.”

New Mexico’s — and the nation’s — struggle to understand and treat mental illness was the heart and soul of the Domenici conference in its ninth year, drawing speakers including a mother whose son struggles with bipolar disorder; a Florida judge who has led reforms to keep the mentally ill out of jail; and a research scientist who is looking at the future of treatment for serious mental disorders. Consultant John Edelman, who would speak about public trust in institutions, choked up as he opened his speech with a reflection on his mother’s battle with bipolar disorder.

The two-day conference offered multiple ways to improve care — and pay for it. Likewise, speakers said early treatment could mean less costly care and less risk of incarceration.

Kennedy hammered many of their key points home on Thursday, calling for “civil rights” for the mentally ill.

“Demographers have said that our life expectancy as Americans is actually flatlining or going down” due to increases in fatal drug overdoses and suicide, Kennedy said. “It is shocking when you think about the size and scope of this public health epidemic that we have not heard more from all branches of government about how we are going to address this crisis.”

Domenici, who attended the conference, served New Mexico in Congress for 36 years and made mental health legislation a cornerstone of his legacy.

Kennedy said, “My call to all of you is, you love this man, he has served this state and this country. Let us make sure we become stewards, that mental health is not a separate and unequal health care system, but mental health is considered part of our health care system.”