TRENTON – The Senate passed legislation sponsored by Senator Shirley K. Turner today that would ensure that patients undergoing mental health treatment and their families would see the same level of charity care relief as patients receiving non-mental health treatments.
“When individuals seek medical treatment for an illness, our laws should not discriminate between mental and non-mental illness,” said Senator Turner, D-Mercer. “The State’s charity care formulas currently do not cover both the mentally ill and non-mentally ill equally. We must break down these artificial barriers and making sure that mental illness is seen as what it truly is – a medical condition that often has a known treatment.”