Quote:
Originally Posted by jo_thorne
If a person in the US doesn't have health insurance, or is low income and has poor-quality health insurance, they may not be able to find a therapist who will see them or they may have to wait for a long time.
I have also dealt with going to mental health care "agencies" where if they let you see a therapist, they don't let you choose which one you see and they may decide at any time that you can't see them anymore. I had this happen a couple of months ago. I had spent 4 months seeing a straight-out-of-school therapist and we were just finally starting to get some real therapy done when the agency decided to cut way back on the number of people they were allowing to have individual therapy, so no more individual therapy there for me.
Before that, for several years I had health insurance but couldn't afford the co-pays, so I went over five years without seeing a therapist and eventually ended up going inpatient for treatment. That was definitely a false economy.
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You're right, and I'm sorry you've had to deal with that. I am no expert on Obamacare because I have private insurance through my employer, but my understanding is that now - pretty much anyone can get insurance. And for those below the proper income level, there is medicaid. It's not that the U.S. system is perfect. But in the countries whose governments control the provision of health care, it is
common for those who suffer from mental illness to not get what they need until they spiral so far downward that they make a suicide attempt. Then they might qualify to get therapy soon. And then when they do get therapy, it tends to be very limited in scope. Typically only CBT, short term. So although I have no doubt that there are U.S. citizens that fall through cracks, most don't. And in countries with government-controlled health care, most do seem to fall through cracks. I spend time on the schizophrenia forum, and it is very clear that those who live in countries with government-controlled health care get in desperate straits just trying to get what comes easily to most here in the U.S..