Mental Health

President Obama said long-awaited rules on mental healthcare will be part of his administration's effort to curb gun violence.

President Obama's plan to reduce gun violence calls for long-awaited rules requiring insurance companies to cover mental health services.

Obama said his administration would finalize rules on mental health parity, the requiring of mental healthcare to be covered the same way as physical healthcare. The regulations have languished since 2008, and Senate Democrats had called on Obama to push the rules forward as part of his gun-control recommendations.

Obama also said his administration would be "issuing guidance making clear that the Affordable Care Act does not prevent doctors from talking to patients about gun safety," amid a host of other healthcare-related actions and recommendations.

President Obama is set to hold a news conference Wednesday to unveil a set of proposals to reduce gun violence. Press secretary Jay Carney outlined the specific recommendations on gun control, but advocates have also pushed hard for a mental-health component — perhaps in the form of long-awaited rules on mental health parity.

Advocates want to see increased funding for mental-health programs, including programs administered through Medicaid. And Senate Democrats pushed the White House last week to implement mental-health parity legislation that passed in 2008 but has languished since.

Obama's press conference is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. The Hill has more.
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The number of military suicides hit a record high in 2012, as the deaths outpaced U.S. casualties in Afghanistan.

Suicides in the military jumped to 349 in 2012, which was an increase from 301 the previous year, a defense official confirmed to The Hill.

The number of suicides in 2012, which was first reported by the Associated Press, is more than any prior year on record, exceeding the previous high of 310 in 2009.

A federal task force on gun violence is set to release its recommendations to President Obama this week, furthering debate over the U.S. mental healthcare system and how it might be strengthened.

Last week, Vice President Biden, who leads the panel, called mental health "one of the most important things that we've been focusing on," though details are murky on what the panel might recommend.

Through recent talks, there was strong support for strengthening background checks to prevent the mentally ill from owning guns, according to reports. Biden also mentioned the high incidence of U.S. suicides involving guns.

A leading House Democrat urged Vice President Biden Friday not to ignore mental health issues as his panel grapples with U.S. gun violence.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote to Biden recommending better gun-safety standards, more research applying a public-health perspective to gun violence and greater mental health coverage for people in the United States.

"Experts agree: the prevalence of guns and gun violence in our society is not just a criminal justice problem; it is also a public health and safety problem," Waxman wrote in a letter Friday. 

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A pair of Senate Democrats on Friday pressed Vice President Biden to include expanded access to mental-health services in his recommendations for addressing gun violence.

The lawmakers want the White House to issue final rules implementing the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which Congress passed four years ago but has not been fully implemented.

Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) called for Biden to include mental-health parity in his recommendations to curb gun violence.

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Football icon Junior Seau had a degenerative brain disease when he committed suicide last May, according to federal researchers.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) studied Seau's brain and found that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which is associated with repeated head trauma.

The disease can lead to depression and progressive dementia, and has affected several dozen former football players. 

As the father of an eight-year-old son and the grandfather to six children under the age of 10, I am horrified by the incredible act of violence that killed 20 young students and the teachers who fought to protect them last week in Newtown, Conn.

In the wake of this tragedy, there’s no doubt that we need a serious and thoughtful national discussion about preventing this kind of senseless violence and protecting our children in their schools. I believe that should include a discussion about finding ways to spend federal dollars more wisely when it comes to treating and identifying people who are mentally ill. It should also include a conversation about ways that we can intervene before someone who is mentally ill does something that tragically impacts their lives and the lives of others.