Dear President,

Anxiety to me feels like that moment you miss a step and you are about to fall that sudden rush of fear and disbelief rushes over you, but it never stops. According to Anxiety Centre: this exact feeling “affects 18.1 % of adults while 30% don’t seek help because they believe they can’t afford the medical cost or they were misdiagnosed.” Anxiety is the number one mental health issue in North America and is highly treatable. It is one of the many mental illness that affect people all over the world, but if anxiety is highly treatable, how come so many people are not getting help?

Anxiety and Depression Association of America believes that: “Your health care professional will use one or a combination of these treatments: therapy, medication, complementary and alternative treatments, TMS ( Transcranial magnetic stimulation). Other options may be tailored specifically for some individuals.” With all these treatments how come some people still can’t afford the $75-$240 cost of a private therapy session? Medical insurances provided cheaper options including group therapy and lighter medication, but every person needs different medications, different treatment options, and different payment options.

One of the more well-known acts against fighting mental illnesses is The Affordable Care Act. “Here’s What Obamacare (ACA) Did for Mental Health”, states: “People with mental health issues also were more likely to have public insurance coverage like Medicaid, rather than private health insurance. Still, private coverage increased by 8.1 percent.” This information provides notable proof that it is a lot easier for people to get access to this medical treatments, but we still have problems in the number of mental health care doctors in rural areas. People with these illnesses may have to wait up to three months for treatment in rural areas.

I could not begin to lay out a plan that could fix all the problems that I desperately want to change, but I may offer good bits of help to this always altering problem. First, we need more proper diagnoses of mental illness, so we need more hospitals. We need more people that can directly work with mentally ill patients and get them the proper treatment and diagnosis they need. Second, with that we need more health insurance companies to provide more direct coverage to people who have proper diagnoses and want treatment. These people need therapy, medications, and the feeling of knowing that the treatment they're getting is going to help them, and that constant state of fear will get better. Dear Next President, are you going to give this people the help they deserve?

Sincerely,

Meghan L.

Citations

"Anxiety Disorder General Statistics." Anxietycentre.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.

"Treatment." Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-04/heres-what-obamacare-did-for-mental-health%3fcontext=amp?client=safari