Actually in the US, mental health benefits are now a mandatory part of health insurance coverage. Which is great...if you have health insurance coverage.
It's important to note that people may not be aware of that because health care insurance has been in a bit of flux lately, to say the least, and there's been a lot of misinformation about the changes coming from a lot of directions.
This is definitely true for me: the last time (last year) we'd had a meeting regarding our insurances I specifically asked about mental health coverage and was given the information I'd mentioned above.
I'll accept the downvotes for my ignorance, but I feel like underlying message is still true: there's undoubtedly a lot of people without coverage still and those people need to seek help elsewhere.
In the US, individual purchase of health insurance is now mandatory (and in some cases subsidized), except for individuals above the threshhold for government provided health-insurance through Medicaid [1].
[1] This isn't exactly true in the few states that haven't expanded Medicaid eligibility as provided for in the ACA, since in those states there is a gap.