the paul wellstone and pete domenici addiction equity act in 2008 built on this first step and provided protections regarding your quality of coverage for medical and surgical benefits and mental health and substance use benefits. this was further strengthened by the affordable care act in 2010. while the progress has been made, there is much room for improvement. since mhpeaea was enacted in 2008, insufficient enforcement and compliance, spotty disclosure of medical manage information and other implementation barriers to accessing mental health and substance abuse services with the equivalency to physical health services has muted the promise of the law for many. today we'll be at hearing with witnesses from the current state of parity laws and on the ground enforcement. without strong enforcement of the parity law, millions of people continue to struggle to get health care they need. i look forward to learning more about this critical -- from california, doris matsui. >> thank you, mr. green. what we really want to do today is treat mental illness as a disease. and if afford it the sa

the paul wellstone and pete domenici addiction equity act in 2008 built on this first step and provided protections regarding your quality of coverage for medical and surgical benefits and mental health and substance use benefits. this was further strengthened by the affordable care act in 2010. while the progress has been made, there is much room for improvement. since mhpeaea was enacted in 2008, insufficient enforcement and compliance, spotty disclosure of medical manage information and other implementation barriers to accessing mental health and substance abuse services with the equivalency to physical health services has muted the promise of the law for many. today we'll be at hearing with witnesses from the current state of parity laws and on the ground enforcement. without strong enforcement of the parity law, millions of people continue to struggle to get health care they need. i look forward to learning more about this critical -- from california, doris matsui. >> thank you, mr. green. what we really want to do today is treat mental illness as a disease. and if afford it the sa

and the two of them came together, paul wellstone and pete domenici, and said every health insurance in america should coverage mental health counseling and care. mandate mental health counseling and care. those two senators from the opposite poles in politics knew together that mental illness is in fact an illness that can be treated. health insurance plans didn't cover it, didn't want to cover it. but the mandate that they came up with included in the affordable care act said, yes, you will cover mental health illness and mental health counseling. well, you've just listened to the senator from texas talking about doing away with mandates, mandates that require the coverage of mental health illness. there's something else they included, too, and most of us didn't know this. it doesn't just say "mental health illness." it says "mental health illness and substance abuse treatment." and what i'm finding in illinois -- and we're finding across the country because of the opioid and heroin epidemic, is that many families get down on their knees and thank good n.a.s. their health insurance

you know, the paul wellstone and pete domenici equity act was designed to insure health insurance planscovering mental disorders and substance abuse disorders would provide the same favorable level of coverage as they would for medical/surgical benefits. since the law's been finalized, we've heard there's still gaps in coverage for mental health disorders, especially for people with eating disorders. with my colleague, congressman lance, we led the effort to include provisions to clarify coverage of eating disorders' benefits including residential treatment within the mental health bill that passed before the august recess. dr. trangle, what is your understanding of how private health insurance contracts handle eating disorders? >> thanks for the question. thanks for the question, and i think it's a great one. as my organization has grown, we combined with another organization, and we now own something called melrose eating disorder center. our organization is really intent upon trying to simultaneously improve of and measure the quality, patient satisfaction and making it more affordab

paul wellstone, the iconic senator from minnesota. harvey milk, the first openly gay elected official. bernie sanders, john lewis, civil rights leader and elizabeth warren. these people have change ode our lives, changed our mind and helped -- i just want to give you final lay portrait of where are we now. what are americans thinking today. 77% of us think there's too much power in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations. 74 think corporations have too much political influence. 60% say the economic system favors the wealthy. 84% think money has too much influence in politics. 85% think we need to overhaul the campaign finance system. 72% favor adopting tougher rules for wall street. 50%, stronger regular laying's greenhouse emissions. >>> 80%, corporations don't pay a fair share of tax, wealthy people don't pay they're fair share of tax. 58% favor raisings tax on the richest people in koch. 66% think wealth should be eevenly distributed. 69% say the government should reduce the gap between the rich and everybody else. 64

there are some -- they don't do what senator paul wellstone did, which is connect with citizen groups all the time. and it's unfortunate because if the citizen community doesn't connect with leaders in congress obviously less gets done. 's got to be a constant vibration back and forth to keep the momentum up. i've written him a dozen time, invited him on corporate symposiums on corporate power. i don't know. ask imihim. i'm not going to speak for him. how do young people passionate about progressive change balance their need for social good with a society that's hollowed out public snugdss and civic organizations -- institutions and civic organizations? what's the best avenue to making advancing social good a career? i would say joining the state public industry research groups. if you go to uspirg.org, that's the national student-funded group with full-time people, that represents the state. public research groups such as the one in colorado or california or massachusetts as i mentioned or other other states and see if you can start one yourself, even a small one on campus. you devel