Sooner or later, this country will reconcile its health care woes. It may take years or even decades, a new president or congressional leadership, or simply an overwhelming public outcry against the continually widening gap between quality coverage for the winnowing middle class and the fortified elite. But sooner or later, American health care will change for the better.

And when that day comes, we will almost certainly adopt a pseudo-European form of nationalized health care, with a federal mandate that all residents purchase health care either privately or publicly — keeping private coverage options open and public coverage costs low to accommodate the entire populace. And without question, this policy will benefit society as a whole.

Yet the current national discourse surrounding the ever-pertinent issue of health care is desperately lacking, and lacking in an extremely consequential avenue: mental health care.

From Barack Obama to Rudy Giuliani, prospective health care plans emphasize "basic health coverage" that permeates from two specific concerns: cost and coverage, both of which are categorically intertwined. And so, with the general aim of low cost and high coverage, most candidates focus on vaccination, preventative medication, chronic diseases and prescription drug costs.

But rarely is there a serious discussion of mental health concerns and the epidemic of depression that is enveloping the country.

If we are to truly make good on our inevitable change of health coverage, the discussion on how best to address depression and other mental health concerns needs to immediately commence.

Currently, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 20 million American adults suffer from severe depression, more than 10 percent of the adult population. The NIMH also reports an astounding 23.5 percent annual increase in severe depression among children below the age of 18 over the last decade, and that nearly one-third of the American female population is severely depressed. Likewise, according to Mental Health America, it is estimated that as many as one million people in the state of Wisconsin suffer from daily depression.

But the figures do not stand alone, and the epidemic does not solely affect those who suffer from the disease.

According to Harvard World Health News, more and more studies are increasingly linking depression to osteoporosis, diabetes, heart disease, some forms of cancer, eye disease and back pain, among other physical ailments.

Moreover, every year, depression results in more absenteeism than any other physical or mental disorder, according to the RAND Corporation, and annually costs American employers an estimated $51 billion in loss of productivity.

It therefore can, and should, be argued that depression is one of the largest health concerns stagnating our economy. But our elected officials seem chronically inept at realizing or addressing the correlation.

Time and again, the economic concerns of health care are expressed by our elected officials in terms of the cost of health care coverage, when, in all practical terms, health care, and mental health in particular, has the potential to increase revenue and productivity while decreasing health costs for employers.

It therefore follows that the debate over health care is, in fact, a debate over the general productivity of the country. And it is in this light that we should evaluate the health care plans, and commitment to mental health, that our presidential candidates display during their campaigns.

In the final years of her husband's presidency, although certainly not with the same fervor of his first year in office, Hillary Clinton innocuously turned her attention back toward health care. In 1999, along with her husband, Ms. Clinton called on Congress to ensure that every state or federal employee have mental health coverage that was as good as the coverage for any other physical illness. And today, she remains the only Democratic presidential candidate to explicitly emphasize mental health coverage in her health care plan. Inexplicably, there are 16 candidates who have yet to follow suit.

Further, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton is spearheading a statewide campaign to have nearly one million Wisconsinites engage in free depression screening today through their employers, and she should be applauded for her efforts in combating this epidemic.

But every day, in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere across the country, our presidential nominees fail to adequately address the issue of mental health. This cannot continue, and as voting citizens, we have the responsibility to ensure that it doesn't.

Andy Granias ([email protected]) . is a junior majoring in political science and legal studies