ShareThisBy MARK ARSENAULT
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Rep. Patrick Kennedy offers this irony: his one late-night car wreck last May brought more attention to the issues of mental health than 12 years of news conferences and speeches in the House.
"This past year has given me an opportunity to raise the profile of the issue in a way that connected me with people as I haven't been before," Kennedy said.
He has joined the public fellowship of people "in recovery," acknowledging after his accident _ which he attributed to a mix of medications in his system _ that he had developed a dependency on pain pills. The six-term Rhode Island Democrat has said he was not drunk the night he drove his Mustang into a security barrier near the U.S. Capitol, though he also acknowledged problems with binge drinking, and he checked himself into rehab.
At the end of a health-care forum in Warwick, R.I., last week, Kennedy, 39, introduced himself to two men in a coffee shop.
"How you feeling?" one asked.
"One day at a time," the other encouraged.
Similar exchanges come frequently on the campaign trail, Kennedy said.
"It's a bonding experience because we identify with each other in a way that's really powerful," he said. "Frankly, there isn't a family in this country that doesn't have a relative or a friend who has faced these issues. I talk about it everywhere I go. Heads nod. People understand it."
Kennedy has been candid for years about seeking treatment for bipolar disorder. Mental health has always been his legislative priority, and will remain so if he is re-elected, as expected, next month.
He has long been pushing his mental-health parity bill, which would require insurance companies to cover mental illness as they would any other health problem. This is only fair, he has argued, because a chemical imbalance in the brain is a physical problem just like the flu or a broken ankle, despite the stigma of mental illness.
"We have a number of other mental-health-related bills, the psychological Kevlar bill, for instance, which is for the military to incorporate mental-health training into their training process to protect our soldiers before they go into battle ..."
Should control of the House flip to the Democrats, "That means that my relationships that I've built the 12 years I've been in Congress _ by being a team player, raising money for my colleagues and campaigning for my colleagues, supporting Nancy Pelosi (the California Democrat in line to become the House speaker) from the very beginning _ that finally gets to mean something. I have great confidence that as Rhode Island's voice I will be effective well beyond a rank-and-file member."
On the Iraq war, Kennedy said, "What we should do is first not pretend that we can bring security to Iraq by ourselves anymore. Because clearly that policy has been repudiated from experience. We need to signal that we're not going to continue this policy and that we're going to reduce our military footprint in Iraq and withdraw our soldiers from an active military role to a role more of military support and advisory."
Kennedy, who voted in favor of authorizing President Bush to use force against Iraq, said that "tribal elements" in Iraq are embroiled in "the clearest case of civil war that you could find," and the United States should set a date for withdrawal.
"We set a date, and while we're doing that, we invite all the countries in the region and say, 'This is going to impact all of you and it's in your common interest to work together to bring stability to this situation,' " he said.
How does he feel about his vote in favor of the Iraq war?
"Knowing what I know now, I feel betrayed by a White House that ... misrepresented the situation in Iraq," he said. "And frankly, I didn't believe that an administration would be partisan in the area of national security. It's so disillusioning to realize that there was such a calculated effort at deception and denial and obfuscation of the facts."
