Virgil Goode Panders on Mental Health

You may remember my article in March talking about Virgil Goode and his insistence that mental health parity legislation not cover certain severe psychological disorders. Pedophilia, incest, transvestism, and others were held up by him as being examples of some maladies we just couldn’t help with anymore.

Here, from Virgil Goode’s own Website, is a listing for mental health parity legislation, what his vote was, and what the result was: (from his legislative page)

Source: Congressman Virgil Goode

Description of Legislation

Votes in the Congress

Vote of Congressman Goode

Mental Disorders Mandates

Members voted, 268-148, the same benefits for mental and physical illness in group plans that cover mental illness. The bill exempts firms with fewer than 51 workers, covers substance abuse and mandates coverage for disorders such as incest, jet lag, gender identity disorder, necrophilia, transvestite fetishes, and pedophilia. A yes vote was to pass HR 1424

268-148

No

Mental Health Parity

Members defeated, 196-221, an alternative proposal to replace HR 1424 (above) with a milder Senate bill that did not contain the incest, jet lag, Transvestite fetishes, and other similar mandates. A yes vote supported a mental-health parity bill that provided discretion rather than mandates for determining mental conditions to be covered.

196-221

Yes

But wait! It gets better.

Recently, the House and Senate passed mental health parity legislation, with the primary change in it being that the law will expire in one year instead of two in the other bill from March. This is worth voting no over?

Virgil has proven over and over again the he loves to pander by using his votes in Congress. Now if we could just get him to actually do something for the majority of the residents of the Fifth District.