[karmajunkie]

i take it you don’t have a lot of experience with the healthcare system prior to 2008 or so when parity for mental health benefits became a requirement. let me tell you what a hellscape it was. it was pretty well accepted practice to never use insurance for mental health, because if you tried, not only would your claim be denied but it would be a preexisting condition forever after that. if you had your GP prescribed an antidepressant —preexisting condition. if you did manage to find someone who took your insurance it was a six month wait for an appointment. and then (because it was pre obamacare) you were highly likely not to be able to get coverage again if you ever had to change insurance providers on the private market. people stayed at jobs years longer than they wanted to solely because of healthcare benefits like mental health.

basically, only those who could afford to pay out of pocket got access to mental health benefits.

i often hear people think out loud, we’re should just let the market dictate X, and it boils my blood because they clearly weren’t paying attention the LAST time we just let the market decide something like this, and it killed a lot of people.