The Supreme Court of the United States, Disability Rights, and Implications for Mental Health Parity
Authors
Linda Myerholtz, Elizabeth Myerholtz
Introduction
It was the evening of Monday, May 2, 2022, at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Annual Spring Conference. Attendees were learning to dance the tango and watching a Backstreet Boys routine at the MediPalooza fundraising event for the STFM Foundation. Then the text messages started flying. Leaked information from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) indicated that Roe v Wade was likely to be overturned. Many of us were stunned and experienced strong emotions. Many of our members immediately began to consider actions to take in response. Then, on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court did overturn Roe v Wade, undoing nearly 50 years of legalized abortion in the United States. The ramifications of this are profound. STFM has published a statement opposing “any laws that interfere with the clinician-patient relationship, restrict residency education to anything less than the full scope of reproductive health care, restrict patient access to care, compound inequities that already exist in health care, or reward vigilante behavior against patients and their health care team.”1
Another ruling by the Supreme Court has gone under the radar recently as well, Cummings v Premier Rehab Keller, PLLC. On my way to the airport to fly to Indianapolis for the STFM Annual Spring Conference, I received a phone call from my daughter, an attorney for Disability Rights North Carolina. Her distress over the ruling was intense. I knew we needed to bring some awareness to the potential impact of this ruling, and thus we decided to collaboratively write this column.
Citation
Myerholtz L, Myerholtz E. The Supreme Court of the United States, Disability Rights, and Implications for Mental Health Parity. Fam Med. 2022 Sep;54(8):661-663. doi: 10.22454/FamMed.2022.884494. PMID: 36098703.
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