Mental Health Parity

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It’s been 10 years since Vermont
enacted its landmark mental health parity law, and now some lawmakers and
mental health advocates are trying to strengthen it. The current law requires all health insurers
to offer equal benefits for mental and physical conditions in their
policies. A new bill before the Senate
this week would allow state regulators to be more aggressive in their policing
of insurance companies.

At the same
time, both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are looking at a
federal law to create mental health parity.
We hear from Ken Libertoff, the Executive Director of the Vermont Association
for Mental Health, and Paulette Thabault, Commissioner of Vermont’s Banking,
Insurance, Securities, Health Care Administration, about changes in mental
health parity.

Also, we bring you the story of Gail Marlene Schwartz…her
one woman play "Crazy" uses humor and visual aids to document
her own struggles with mental illness.

And, last week we brought you the story of thousands of bats
who are dying from a mysterious disease.
We received more questions from listeners than we were able to answer,
so we invited wildlife biologist Scott Darling back to answer some of our
listeners’ best questions.

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