Although, it's really sad it's so necessary to stuff bills with other goodies in order to get enough Congress members to pass it, and we've certainly watched this happen to the "rescue" bill: I was particularly happy that health insurance companies are now mandated to insure their client's mental health needs as well.

This seems to be one of the least understood concepts of health in general: even recently I hear some doctors spewing the most ignorantly backwards theories about causes and affects of mental illness, so it's really no wonder why so few have a clue. It's a shame such a bill couldn't pass on it's own, but this is one I'm particularly glad followed on the coattails of an otherwise innane bill.

I wish that medicare would follow suit with this type of thinking: medicare's drug insurance plan doesn't cover medicines as common and widely used as anti-anxiety medication. And for the record: you either have to be retired or disabled to receive medicare. I'll draw your attention to the "disabled" part, where a disability isn't limited strictly to a physical handicap, but also mental handicaps: what's one of the most prevalent mental disorders according to more recent revelations? Anxiety.

I'm probably expecting too much considering electro-shock therapy was still a viable option for treatement for depressive individuals well into the 21st century, despite its affects being decidedly unhelpful in any way: its affects include loss of memory, loss of cognition, let alone causing a whole new array of mental impairments.

I chalk this one up as a victory.