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American Morning
Rosalynn Carter Promoting Insurance for Mental Illnesses
Aired December 05, 2001 - 09:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: For much of her public life, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has been an advocate for the mentally ill. She is in Washington again today pushing for final passage of a bill that would put insurance for mental illness on par with coverage for physical illnesses. First Lady Barbara Bush and Tipper Gore have also championed mental health causes.
Rosalynn Carter joins me now from Washington.
It's an honor to have you back -- welcome.
ROSALYNN CARTER, FORMER FIRST LADY: Thank you, Paula.
ZAHN: Tell us a little bit about the message that you will be sending later today about mental health and its costs.
CARTER: We are closer to having parity in insurance coverage for people with mental illnesses than ever before. And I think it would be probably the most wonderful Christmas present mentally ill people could get because insurance discriminates against them. And we have a bill that has passed the Senate, we have enough votes in the House to pass it, but we can't get it out of Conference Committee. It is so frustrating to me.
ZAHN: And what do you think is the major stumbling block at this point, because I know...
CARTER: Well...
ZAHN: ... you feel if this bill passes it will dramatically affect the way Americans live, particularly those that need help from psychologists and psychiatrists and other doctors?
CARTER: Absolutely, but the main reason that we can't get it out of the Conference Committee is because insurance companies and businesses think it will raise prices so much on the health coverage. But we've been doing research on this. I have a really good program at the mental -- at the Carter Center, and the whole mental health community has been working on this for at least a decade to see that companies that do offer insurance coverage for mental illnesses to see what it does to the -- to the expenses.
And what happens is that the insurance costs go up and health care coverage goes up at first when it began covering mental illnesses. But over a period of time, just four or five years, the overall insurance costs and health care costs come down, because people who are suffering from depression or anxiety or so forth go to their primary care doctor more often. If they had coverage for their mental illness, then the overall health care costs would come down.
And some studies show that businesses -- actually it doesn't cost them very much because when people are treated for their mental illness then there's not as much absenteeism, not as much turnover of jobs. The quality of work is -- goes down when people are mentally ill or depressed. But just so many reasons the direct cost of coverage is offset by the indirect costs.
ZAHN: I'm wondering when you make your arguments later today whether you in fact will mention some statistics that have been cited that we know that 70 percent of all Americans are feeling some kind of post traumatic stress from the attacks of September 11? And we know that experts have testified in Congress, particularly children they are concerned will fall through the cracks. Are you going to use that to reinforce your argument today to suggest that perhaps this is more urgent than even before?
CARTER: Paula, I think it calls attention to the need for people with mental illnesses to have good health care. And I think that particularly now it's so much -- so much cost effective to care for people in the early stages of any mental illness then it is to let them go on, drag on for years and until people are really, really sick and require long-term hospitalization. So that's the case for all mental illnesses. I hope, maybe, this terrible tragedy will focus enough attention on the issue that we can get some help with it.
ZAHN: We will follow your progress.
Quick question to you about your husband, he has a new book out about his reflections of previous Christmases in Plains, Georgia, is it a good read, First Lady Carter?
CARTER: It's a good book. It's a good book. We've had some really interesting, exciting Christmases.
ZAHN: Well we'd love to have the former president come on and talk about that some day. Put in a good wood for us, would you please?
CARTER: OK, I'm sure he'd be...
ZAHN: We'd love to have him. I actually have a copy of the book. It is really quite sweet.
CARTER: Good.
ZAHN: Take care and good luck...
CARTER: He'd be happy to come out.
ZAHN: ... later today.
Rosalynn Carter,...
CARTER: Thank you, Paula.
ZAHN: ... always, good to see you.
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