inseparable

If you've ever tried to get a loved one help during a mental health crisis, you know coverage doesn't always show up the way you'd expect. Part of the reason traces back to how insurance rules were written.

Essential health benefits are supposed to guarantee mental health and substance use care are covered like a hospital stay or ER visit. But the rulebook defining what insurers must cover was locked in using employer plans from 2012 and 2014, written before mental health parity law was fully in effect.

This month, we told CMS exactly that. Alongside NAMI, Mental Health America, and six other national groups, we laid out how that gap still shows up in coverage today and what needs to change.

Read what we told them: https://insact.us/4g3Lqol

Kids are growing up online, and the platforms shaping their days still face almost no rules to keep them safe. That is closer to changing than it has been in a generation. The Kids Online Safety Act now has 77 senators behind it, and the House just passed its own version.

We are calling on the Senate Commerce Committee to advance KOSA before the August recess as a standalone bill, with no amendments that weaken it or override the state protections families are already counting on. Sen. Marsha Blackburn has been the fiercest champion for kids online, and we are urging her to keep this bill whole. Our children have waited long enough.

For four years, Sen. Marsha Blackburn has championed the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that would require social media companies to put children's well-being ahead of their profits, and she has done it as a legislator, a mother, and a grandmother who listens to grieving families across the country.

Parents of every background want the same thing, which is for their children to grow up safe from the harms that too many families have already suffered. Passing KOSA would be a legacy that families everywhere could point to with pride for years to come.

The moment to finish the job is near, and Big Tech is pushing for a deal that would weaken the very protections at stake. We are grateful to Senator Blackburn for being a champion for children, and we are asking her to continue to stand firm so this legacy becomes real. Read the op-ed from two mothers who know how much this matters, and share it with your community.

Blackburn should stand firm on the Kids Online Safety Act | Opinion Grieving parents urge Sen. Marsha Blackburn to pass the Kids Online Safety Act without granting Big Tech immunity.

The country is closer than it's been in 25 years to real protections for kids online, and Sen. Sen. Marsha Blackburn just made the case in the Washington Post.

A Duty of Care shifts the responsibility where it belongs: onto the platforms that create these harms, not merely on parents and families left to manage the consequences.

When we tell someone to ask for help, we have to make sure help actually exists. Right now, for too many people, it doesn't — because there aren't enough mental health providers where they live.

Care that's fair means a workforce that's big enough to meet the moment. Providers in every community and care that exists before you need it, not after you've already gone without.

Learn more: https://carethatsfair.us

Good news from the Tar Heel State! Requiring 988 on student IDs just became law in North Carolina.

Beginning this coming school year, the 988 crisis hotline will be printed on all middle school, high school, and college IDs. Young people are reaching out for help, and The Student Lifeline Act ensures that North Carolina students won’t need to reach farther than the ID card in their pocket.

When 988 calls increase, expected suicides among young people drop. Between 2022 and 2024, that drop translated to more than 4,000 young lives saved nationwide. Students, their friends, and their families deserve to have access to crisis resources that work. The Student Lifeline Act, passed in the state budget, puts it right in their hands. This is common sense mental health legislation at work, and North Carolina delivered.

Thank you Sen. Benton Sawrey, Representative Dr. Tim Reeder and Representative Ray Pickett for your leadership on this critical issue.

Our Chief Policy Officer, David Lloyd, spoke with Mental Health Weekly about the fight to protect Medicaid coverage for people living with serious mental illness and substance use disorders, and why this moment matters.

A new federal rule narrows who qualifies for exemptions in ways that go beyond what Congress intended. Twenty-five states and D.C. have filed suit to push back. The risk is real: more administrative hurdles mean more people losing coverage not because they're ineligible, but because they can't navigate the paperwork.

Medicaid covers roughly half of all mental health treatment in this country. It should be easy to get and easy to afford. We're going to make sure it stays that way.

We're proud of David's leadership on this issue.