The parents a young man referred to Riverbend Community Mental Health for help with his mental illness and drug use wrote to me recently to say that our mental-health system was a "cruel joke" because we could provide him only limited services.

You see, their son wasn't ill enough to qualify for intensive services. And even if he was, his drug use disqualified him. New Hampshire rules forbid paying for mental health services if the symptoms might be caused by drugs or alcohol. Never mind the fact that many people have co-existing mental health and substance abuse problems that can be treated successfully. Instead, the young man could only receive sub-optimal care because Medicaid dollars are scarce.

For people like him, health-care reform cannot wait. And it must include mental health and addiction services in all of its components.

Nationwide, the economic, social and human costs of mental health and addictions disorders are staggering:

• Mental illness drains our economy of more than $80 billion every year, accounting for 15 percent of the total economic burden of all disease.

• Alcohol and drug abuse contributes to the death of more than 100,000 Americans and costs upward of half a trillion dollars a year.

• A quarter of all Social Security disability payments are for individuals with mental illness.

Quality health care should focus on prevention, early intervention and treatment and management of chronic conditions. Comprehensive health-care reform could also help stem the escalating mortality rates of people with serious mental illnesses. People in the United States with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder die an average of 25 years sooner than other Americans, according to a 2006 study conducted by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. Three out of every five people with serious mental illnesses die from preventable, co-occurring chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and cardiopulmonary conditions.

Health-care reform cannot wait another year. Congress must act now to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for New Hampshire.

(Louis Josephson is CEO of Riverbend Community Mental Health Inc. in Concord.)