Bipolar Disorder and Medical Costs

Recently, I've read about health care in the United States for the mentally ill. In January of next year, health care insurance providers must have health care benefits for mentally ill patients, too. An article in the NYT mentions that the downside of this might be that mentally ill patients will require pre-certification for their coversage.

I was hopeful that under the new health care legislation, health care reform would preclude insurance companies from stopping patients from getting coverage for pre-existing conditions, but I don't know if this is likely to actually happen.

As someone who doesn't currently have health insurance, it's fricking expensive to get psychiatric care. My doctor's appointments cost $125.00 for 15-minute-appointments for the loosely-termed "medication-management", which basically means me telling my doctor that yes, I sleep and that my appetite is more than adquate and then figuring out for myself whether I want to up my medication or lower it. Occasionally, he will advise me to change medications, but I don't really know if this is worth the fee.

Then, I have to buy my medication from a Canadian pharmacy because for some reason that I fail to comprehend, Americans are responsible for paying the R & D of new medications and as a result, have the most expensive medication costs in the world. I also fail to see the exact reason why medicine from Canada is so dangerous that it can't legally cross the border. SHould we really be that wary of the nefarious Canadians?

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