This may not continue online for very long but it is somehow available to everyone now.

Dear Friends,

We urgently need help to keep Congress from approving the mental health parity bill, HR 1402

This bill would require every group healthcare plan to cover mental health treatment at the same treatment limits as actual physical diseases. Currently, nearly every plan has a separate structure for mental health treatment because it is so expensive, prone to fraud and ineffective.

The current Congress will have 9 days, starting Monday, before its authority is ended. This is when last-ditch efforts are made to get things through.

HR 1402, introduced by Patrick Kennedy, is the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act, named after a legislator who recently died and who worked for mental health parity for years. The plan is to get the co-sponsors to sign a ‘discharge petition’ that will bring the bill out of committee and onto the floor of the House of Representatives for vote.

Here's the easy steps to take:

1) Find your Representative - go to http://www.house.gov and enter your zip+4 mailing code.

2) Go to your representative's website using the link provided and find their phone and fax numbers.

3) Send a short fax / or phone them during business hours in Washington, DC, and tell them to OPPOSE THE DISCHARGE PETITION FOR HR 1402.

Sample reasons (pick one): Mental health parity will bankrupt the health care system; mental health is full of fraud and abuse; too many kids are labeled with psychiatric disorders and put onto damaging drugs and this bill will make that much worse.

4) check here for the list of Representatives who have co-sponsored this bill. If YOUR Representative is on this list, please also call the local office, get others to call, and do whatever you can to raise a fuss.

THIS IS VITAL! Using the link there to email them may be counter-productive so please phone or fax instead.