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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 7, 2003)
Y SPORTS THE BATTALION cuban :ial ’s encouraging that he atience to see medevel- football player.” playing all 16 gamesas in 1999, starting the last r Greg Ellis broke his iban led the Cowboys '2 sacks the next season playing primarily in a role and missing four ecause of big toe injury, in started the 2001 sea ler, but played only in half against Tampa Bay herniated disk in his bred surgery and forced liss the rest of the year, had to earn his starting in training camp last ugh even the bad he had, he still was )me tackles and getting ■ssures on the quarter- id Ellis, also Ekuban's • at North Carolina and lo. I by Dallas a year Te still played hard. He I’t hitting on all cylin- year.” n insists he’s not on the past ups-and- the fact that he is going ist year of his contract, isappointments seem to /ator for him. just out trying to make or the past couple of ;n things haven’t gone hopefully put every- ■ther,” Ekuban said, hat’s also what the want. makes urt ance ahlberg TED PRESS I BA superstar Kobe appearance in court if sexually assaulting er. eys, the 24-year-old his attorneys waived tdvised of the felony iderick Gannett seta )ct. 9. had consensual sex nocent of assault, i $25,000 bond, said l the seven-minute 'thouse immediately ave Colorado soon amid a media frenzy undreds of reporters aed this quiet moun- earing involving the ried live on national it to a nearby airport iagle County court- vehicle. There were ut of “Kobe is inno- er he arrived. attorney Pamela gh a metal detector lurtroom. ', a small city oftel- as set up riext to a r live TV shots — irage Bryant hoped ys asked Gannett to kers star to skip the request, setting the 'ent. BRIEF 11 of two- for pushing econd baseman Jeff I of a two-game sus- ihing team manager umpire, the team ed an undisclosed .eague Baseball, will tinst the New York fhursday at Minute rials, who issued the said Kent pushed daft Hollowell while out for arguing a ig the Astros' home cago Cubs, to appeal the sus- lay night's 10-1 loss Opinion The Battalion Page 7- Thursday, August 7, 2( MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS S should adhere to the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health’s report T he New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, created by President George W. Bush in 2002 to examine the condition of America’s mental health sys tem and to make recommenda tions, released its long-awaited report on July 22. The report, which has been embraced by organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association and the National Mental Health Association, found the mental health system to be “in shambles” and “broken.” The report. Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America, recommends a fundamental change in how mental health is delivered in the United States. Instead of being so crisis- oriented and focusing on providing medica tion and managing symptoms, the commission stresses the need for an integrated system focused on prevention, early diagnosis and complete care. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson charged the HHS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration with coming up with a comprehensive plan to implement the report's recommendations. The report could have remarkable and extensive effects on how the mentally 11 are treated in the United States, if the national govern ment follows through and applies the changes. Mental illness is too serious a problem and the system is too damaged to let the opportunity this report repre sents slip by. Between 5 and 7 percent of American adults suffer from serious mental illness each year, and between 5 and 9 percent of children suffer from emotional distur- JENELLE WILSON bances. Mental illness is at the top of a list of illnesses that cause dis abilities in the United States, Canada and Western Europe. According to the World Health Organization, mental illness, including depression, bipolar dis order and schizophrenia, accounts for nearly one-fourth of all disability across major indus trialized countries. As the report states, “No community is unaffected by mental illness; no school or workplace is untouched.” The costs of mental illness are enormous; it indirectly costs the United States $73 billion a year, according to the New Freedom report. Most of this — $63 billion — is in lost produc tivity. The best way to reduce these figures is to catch mental illness before it gets out of hand, not just to suppress symptoms, which, obvious ly, has not been working so far. a Mental illness is too serious a problem and the system is too damaged to let the opportunity this report represents slip by. Currently, only one-third of adults with a mental illness are working and, of those, most are underpaid. As a result, many have to rely on public assistance such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Social Security Income and Social Security and Disability Income. In fact, 35 percent of SSI recipients and 28 percent of SSDI recipients have mental illnesses, and millions of the mentally ill are homeless. One of the worst consequences of mental illness is suicide. Suicide is the leading cause of violent deaths worldwide; it's greater than homicide and war-related deaths combined. In the United States, 30,000 people die a year from suicide, and 90 percent of them have a mental illness. The most disturbing aspect of these numbers is that 40 percent had visited their primary care physicians within a month of their death, but their illnesses were not caught. The commission’s biggest concern is the lack of integration between systems; it is far too fragmented, which leads to confusion and disparate treatments. The systems providing access to care, including Medicare, Medicaid, TANF and juvenile justice and criminal justice systems, have to be coordinated. However, to coordinate the various pro grams is going to take money. Unfortunately, the commission did not address this issue and funding for mental ill ness is being cut across the nation as states face budgetary crises. Even before budget cuts, mental illness funding never reached parity with its prevalence in society. The burden of mental illness in the United States is 20 per cent, yet only 5 to 7 percent of health expendi tures are directed toward disorders, according to the APA. Millions of people with mental illnesses are already failing to receive the care they need. Health insurance companies and even Medicare treat mental illness with disdain. The Medicare co-pay for mental illness is 50 percent, com pared to 20 percent for physical illnesses. It is much easier, not to mention far cheaper, to prevent mental illness than it is to treat it. The government can show it’s sincere in taking mental illness seriously by following the com mission’s recommendations. Education pro grams to decrease the stigma associated with disorders, passing legislation requiring parity between mental and physical health insurance coverage and eliminating the disparate treat ment experienced by minorities and rural popu lations is essential to destroying the control mental illness has on the United States. Jenelle Wilson is a senior political science major. Graphic by Seth Freeman Malpractice premiums are plaguing doctors m: MIDHAT FAROOQI "ore doctors are closing the -doors to their clinics, as they become victims of severely high malpractice insurance rates. In Texas alone, the cost of medical malpractice premiums rose more than 15 percent each year from 1996 to 2000. The rates are projected to double every five years. The skyrocketing cost of medical malpractice insurance is a nationwide problem. Democrats in the U.S. Senate, however, have turned a blind eye to this crisis. In July, they voted against the Patients First Act. The legislation, championed by President George W. Bush, sought to limit the amount of money that victims of medical malpractice could collect for pain and suffering. Republicans say this would lower the amount of money juries could award malpractice victims, hence, lowering mal practice insurance premiums and allowing more physicians to return to work. They are right. Such reform is necessary and would be effective. Specifically, the Patients First Act required full reimbursement for any economic loss suffered by a patient without limitation. However, it placed a $250,000 limit on the amount a patient could receive for non-monetary losses such as pain and suffering. The bill also limited the contingency fees trial lawyers could charge the patient. The Patients First Act is modeled after a similar and successful California law: the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act. This law placed a cap on noneconomic losses and limited the contingency fees that trial lawyers could charge. As a result, while malpractice premiums increased by 437 per cent nationwide since 1975, California’s rose by only one-third that amount during the same period. Democrats said the bill would not lower mal practice premiums. They maintain that insurance companies are making less profit because of the sluggish economy, not high jury awards and frivo lous lawsuits. Thus, to compensate for losses, the companies are increasing malpractice premiums. But, a report released last week by the General Accounting Office showed conclusively that legal awards, not stock market losses, were the over whelming reason for rising medical liability insur ance premiums. Opponents of the bill also say a $250,000 cap is unfair, especially for severe injuries caused by physician mismanagement. For example, a quadri plegic could receive only $250,000 for a lifetime of paralysis. But, a second patient, one with a less severe injury, could be awarded the same amount. The direct effect of the award limit then appears to increase injustice, not reduce it. But, the fact that $250,000 cannot compensate for the pain a patient endures either shows that $250,000 isn’t enough money or it demonstrates that money cannot compensate for non-monetary losses. A quadriplegic will not feel less pain if awarded more money, say $1 million. Nor would that person have willingly become a quadriplegic if offered $1 million, or even $10 million. Money is limited compensation for pain and suffering, both of which are subjective and immeasurable. Democrats also say that, traditionally, medical liability laws have been under state control and should remain that way. This is true: Currently, some states have enacted caps and passed tort laws, while others have not. Yet, this has created a prob lem. Since doctors prefer lower insurance premi ums, one would expect them to practice in states that have curbed insurance rates. This results in a shortage of doctors in some areas while other regions across the country have an ample supply of physicians. The quality of healthcare in this country, then, is not uniform and suffers. This is exactly what researchers at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality have found. They studied how state malpractice caps influence where physicians practice medicine. They compared the physician to population ratio in 1970, when no states had laws capping damage payments, to the same ratio 30 years later. States had virtually identi cal levels of physicians in 1970. In 2000, states with caps averaged 135 physicians per 100,000 citi zens while states without caps averaged 120. Unless some action is taken, one can expect this disparity to become even greater. Democrats had no sound reason for voting against the Patients First Act. The bill attempted to limit excessively high awards to plaintiffs, an important reason for increasing insurance premi ums, and such caps have proven to work. Republicans should make this a key issue in the 2004 elections. Maybe by then Democrats will real ize that trial lawyers cannot substitute for doctors and see the need for tort reform. Midhat Farooqi is a junior genetics major. MAIL CALL Criticism of The Battalion in mail calls unwarranted This is all getting old, you know? All of these mail call letters talking about the closing of the journalism department and how it's about time because of how awful The Battalion is. Instead of realizing that destroying a department is detrimental to all stu dents, so many Aggies think that it is necessary because the student newspa per is, in their opinion, very bad. That six page newspaper that many students work very hard on every day is not going to get better by closing the department that educates many of its writers; it is going to get worse. Also, not all of those who choose to write for The Battalion or The Aggieland do so just to please the student body. Writing for a student publication gives students the opportunity to develop writ ing skills, work as a team and prepare for life after college. Compare it to a sports team for a minute, one that practices daily to devel op individual playing skills, work as a team or prepare for playing for a profes sional team. Imagine if Texas A&M cut the volleyball program because of lack of instructors, or decided to do away with baseball all together because there were too many students interested in playing. How much sense does that make to you? The athletes would be furious and hurt if their fellow Aggies just wrote in to say good riddance, or to point out every mis take made in a game, every error or fum ble made. What if all football players were expect ed to train with the tennis team or the lacrosse team prior to every game, and then perform their best on Saturday? Would anybody really expect them to do well? Of course not. They wouldn't be equipped with the skills needed to com pete with other teams, especially those from schools that put time and effort into developing a strong football program. This would be like if journalists were trained with speech communications guidelines and then tried to get a job as a writer or work for a public relations firm. This is what will happen if the depart ment is closed. Does this make any sense to you, because it makes no sense to me. Lindsay Leifeste Class of 2005