Struggle for control: Mental-health care coverage is lacking

During this time, doctors tried 14 medicines to stabilize her. "It was horrible," she remembers. "It was just such a terrible roller coaster."

As she neared her 18th birthday, her thoughts turned darker still. She couldn't face the world. Although she'd learned growing up that a person who killed herself would go to hell, the dark, suicidal thoughts were winning. "God will understand," she found herself thinking. "He'll forgive me."

Then: "The world would be better off if I were dead."

One afternoon her mother's friend found her at a mountaintop above Springville, overlooking a rock cliff Roberts meant to be her grave.

Her life was saved, but the event triggered a corresponding financial fight with insurance companies that has dominated the past few years.

She was kicked off her mom's insurance after a second hospitalization in a Utah County psychiatric ward. Shortly afterward, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder but had no medical insurance for two years while doctors tried to figure out how to regulate her medications.

"My parents paid everything out of pocket," Roberts said. Weekly therapy, psychiatric visits every other week and a collection of medications that cost $150 to $450 each. Her parents spent thousands.

At age 20, the government-funded Primary Care Network picked her up and began to pay all but $150 a month for the costs of her medications.

But four months ago, when she decided to try college, the network canceled her insurance because she's a full-time student. "The system is just so screwed up," Roberts said.

Roberts is in her first semester at Utah State University in Logan. Despite a couple of bumps along the way, she is earning a 3.5 GPA in her first foray into independent living after several years wrestling with mental-health hurdles.

Today Roberts has no medical insurance. She gets free doctor visits through the college but pays $500 a month for medications to regulate her moods and blood chemistry. She pays for medication with student loans.

Her worries about insurance are laced with measured success in these first four months of independence, which she calls a huge boost to her self-esteem.

She's joined a sorority. She's majoring in biology and wants to be a doctor. Maybe an oncologist.

Most recently, she applied to Health Med Assistance Inc. in Salt Lake City, and after an arduous process, it looks like she may get help paying for part of her prescriptions. The plan will cover certain drugs but not others.

"I feel like I'm doing really well," she said. "And if I could get on an insurance plan, that would really help."

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E-mail: romboy@desnews.com; lucy@desnews.com