ACA repeal would leave vulnerable without help

Repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) could cause a mental health crisis in America. We need to keep and improve mental health insurance coverage. Insurers must provide parity at the same level of benefits for mental illnesses as for physical illnesses and injuries.

We have lost too many family members, sisters, brothers, children to suicide, drug and alcohol addictions because of a forprofit health insurance industry that can deny care because it is too expensive.

That is why so many Americans were uninsured prior to the ACA.

When help is not available, some will self-medicate with street drugs. This has led to the horror of almost 500 deaths last year in Palm Beach County. It leads to homelessness, increased incarceration of the mentally ill and the demand for more for-profit prisons in Florida.

The ACA now provides insurance for young adults up to age 26 on their parents’ policy. And mental illnesses are diseases of teens and young adults. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for teens.

If this was cancer would we abandon our children to prison or to the streets where they are vulnerable to sexual predators and worse?

We must improve treatment and we must commit to research to find the cures just as we would for other health issues. We need to provide a safety net for our families. We must not abandon our young Americans to prison, to the streets or worse.

Sheila Jaffe, Boca Raton