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