The Mental Health Parity Bill is a bill that was first passed by Congress as the Mental Health Parity Act in 1996 and was created to help give people who needed mental health care but did not have enough money to pay for such care get the attention they needed for their mental health issues. The Mental Health Parity Bill was recently passed and approved by a lower house committee this year and has since then gathered a lot of flack from the people who may need to shell out the money to cover the expenses that this bill will incur.

The Mental Health Parity Bill basically states that insurance companies and employers need to provide equal health care benefits for both physical as well as mental illnesses.

This means that aside from physical health care, people who have insurance policies or are employed by certain companies are entitled to mental health care when they need it and the cost for such mental health care should be covered by the insurance company or the employer of the person suffering from the mental health issues they are going through.

The Mental Health Parity Bill is rather controversial since there are really no set boundaries that indicate the true extent of mental issues that may affect the people who claim that they need medical attention for mental health problems. The recently approved Mental Health Parity Bill is also very controversial since the original Mental Health Parity Act had exempted coverage by insurance companies and employers if the expenses incurred by a patient if the mental health problems were proven to have been the result of substance abuse or drug usage. The Mental Health Parity Bill supports that a person is entitled to the same kind of care that they might get if they had cancer or heart disease for problems that involve alcoholism or drug addictions.

The Mental Health Parity Bill is not a welcome development for employers and insurance companies alike since they believe that a lot of people will take advantage of this bill and seek treatment for the smallest possible mental health illness they may think they have. Employers also argue that this kind of a bill will be an added burden to their situation and will only be an additional expense on their part. The probability of this bill creating huge dents in the medical bills and insurance policy payments of companies is pretty real.

However, the reason behind the creation and approval of such a bill is noble and admirable despite the lack of concrete guidelines to help keep this bill from being abused.

This event was first celebrated way back in 1992 on the tenth day of October. The first ever World Mental Health Day began without a particular theme in mind although the objectives for such a celebration were clear enough.

The reasons put forth by the World Federation for Mental Health for the creation of such a day as the World Mental Health Day revolved around the many issues that had to do with mental health and the need to have people realize how important good mental health was in conjunction with good physical health as well as to show people that the people suffering from mental problems are people that need care and support.

The World Mental Health Day celebration went on every year after it was first initiated and every year, more and more people seem to take notice and to understand the logic behind the activities of the World Federation for Mental Health.

While the first two years of the World Mental Health Day celebrations basically covered a lot of ground, it did not focus on one particular issue for the year or the day.

The third year that the World Mental Health Day was held finally centered on one particular issue. The celebration of World Mental Health Day in 1994 had the theme “Improving the Quality of Mental Health Services throughout the World.” This theme had the members and supporters of the World Federation for Mental Health coming up with programs and ideas that revolved around the theme for that year’s World Mental Health Day celebration. This then paved the way for the creation of a theme every year for this day that helps people take note of the need to give some time and effort to making good mental health a priority in the regions that they are in.

In 2007, the theme that is being used for the celebration of World Mental Health Day is “Mental Health in a Changing World: The Impact of Culture and Diversity”.

While this celebration is slated to take place worldwide in one day, which is the 10th of October, planning for such an event takes months. The activities that members in different parts of the world come up with are all aimed at showing those who do not yet understand the ill effects of mental illness and what can be done to create a mentally sound world. These activities are then shared with the other members around the world after the celebration of World Mental Health Day with the help of the organization that first created the World Mental Health Day.