Action Alert:
We need you to call your Senators today!

Urge Your Senator to Sign onto a Letter in Support of Parity Regulations Now Action Needed no later than August 6!

Issue:

After years of hard work by mental health organizations such as the EDC, as well as other advocates and consumers, Congress passed the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 on October 3, 2008. The bill requires the Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS) and Treasury to issue regulations before the effective date for the Act which is January 1, 2010. It is essential the regulations are issued to avoid misinterpretation of the law and to ensure access to critical mental health and addiction services.

Senators Al Franken, Ted Kennedy, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed are circulating a Dear Colleague Letter in the Senate which will be sent to the Secretaries of the three departments responsible for issuing the regulations insisting they act quickly and consider the comments that were filed in
response to the request for information (RFI).

The EDC provided comments to the agencies earlier this year urging the agencies to interpret the law in a manner that would include eating disorders
coverage. In order to make sure that years of hard work and advocacy pay off let's call our Senators and ask them to sign onto this letter with Senator Al Franken and colleagues!

Solution:

Call your Senators How to find your Senators: go to www.senate.gov

Put in your state and your two Senators will come up.

Use the phone number for the DC office (starts with 202)

The Message:

"Hi my name is XX.
I am a constituent calling about the implementation of mental health parity regulations. I would like to urge the Senator to make sure mental health parity regulations are issued by October 3, 2009 by signing onto Sen. Franken's, Kennedy's, Whitehouse's and Reed's Dear Colleague Letter by 5:00 pm on August 6th. This step helps to ensure parity and equality are achieved for mental health and addiction services. Thank you for passing that information on to him/her."

Thanks! Every voice matters - we've had many examples of how one person writing a letter or making a phone call to their legislators makes a difference.

Once you make your call email manager@eatingdisorderscoalition.org and tell us who you called! Thanks so much!