At a time when many public workers face never-before-seen on-the-job challenges and all the stress that comes with it, a new bill seeks to enhance the level of health coverage for firefighters, police officers, public school teachers, city and state workers to include greater mental health protections.
“This legislation brings more health care plans into compliance with federal protections like mental health and substance use disorder parity laws and closes a loophole that has allowed government-run plans to deny coverage for critical health care services,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of four lawmakers sponsoring the measure, told The 19th News.
With many frontline workers saddled with non-federal governmental health plans that don’t cover such options, the so-called Closing Health Coverage Gaps for Public Servants Act also seeks to expand coverage in other areas, such as critical care.
Over the past few years, public school teachers and staff, professions dominated by women, have suffered unmatched mental health challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic has lingered, forcing many into unforeseen life-altering changes, according to The 19th News.
“It’s no secret that the work of educators is harder than ever, with increased stress, shortages and political interference and attacks,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told The 19th News. “We need to support them by giving them the resources to deal with their own trauma and the lingering effects of an extremely difficult two years.”
As one of the sponsors of the bill, U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) argues that standing in full support of it strikes her as a no-brainer.
“Mental health care is health care, and it’s unacceptable that some health plans don’t treat it that way,” Porter said, according to The 19th News. “We owe it to teachers, firefighters and other public servants, who have been on the frontlines of the pandemic, to remove the unfair barriers they face getting the care they need.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic making it harder to gain access to “non-urgent” health care, early on in the crisis, the National Cancer Institute projected that upwards of 5,000 additional breast cancer deaths could be seen over the next decade. In addition, hospital information company Strata Decision Technology pegged decreases in the number of women receiving services to be as high as 86%.
“The choice to have a mastectomy and to feel comfortable post-mastectomy, whether that is through breast reconstruction or not, is something deeply personal for many breast cancer patients, and we believe that needs to be decided by the patient and their provider, not by insurance coverage,” Molly Guthrie, a senior director at Susan G. Komen, told The 19th News.
