Advocates like you have fought for health care equality for those with addiction and mental illness, since 1992. So a partial mental health parity law was passed in 1996 that was a significant step forward. Subjects many Americans to the risk of major financial losses from outofpocket costs, the widespread practice of providing unequal coverage for behavioral health and identical medical care not only limits access to needed care. At the most profound level, these practices reinforce the poisonous stigma underlying disparate treatment of others. Anyway, fosters a climate that lerates and even encourages other forms of discrimination and weakens the fabric of ‘equalopportunity’ laws, that disparate coverage of behavioral health may be routine. Isn’t only morally offensive in itself. Most Americans with health support face greater barriers in accessing services for mental illness and addiction than they face for accessing care for other medical conditions. Plenty of health plans impose higher out of pocket spending requirements and more restrictive treatment limitations on addiction and mental health benefits. A well-known fact that is. Mental disorders are shockingly common, as the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health observed in its final report2.
Mental health is essential to leading a healthy life and to the development and realization of each person’s full potential.
Most people are affected in some way by mental illness at some point in their lives.
Mental illness and substanceuse disorders are leading causes of disability and premature mortality in the United States. Real opportunity exists for advocacy at the state level to require almost any insured life to be covered by effective mental health and substance abuse services without regard to diagnosis, severity, or cause. By the way, the federal health care reform legislation greatly expands health certificate does not erase the gaps in federal parity regulation, as noted above. Consequently, both the MHPAEA and federal health care reform legislation allow states to make stronger parity regulations. Seriously. All there’s a range of treatments for virtually almost any such disorder, with striking scientific advances over the last half century. Those treatments have efficacy rates comparable to or exceeding those for many medical and surgical conditions.
With far reaching and often tragic results, health certificate plans. Have long imposed barriers that limit access to needed behavioral health care for both mental and ‘substance use’ disorders.
That such blatant discrimination continues to flourish more than a decade after enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, some forty years after the adoption of the first modern civil rights’ laws, and nearly a century since this organization’s establishment as a movement on the basis of key concepts of social justice attests to the deep rootedness of the stigma surrounding behavioral health disorders.
That such ongoing arbitrary discrimination is countenanced by federal law is nothing short of shameful. Remember, no comparable barriers limit access to needed care for other illnesses. Furthermore, the regulations are effective for plan years beginning on or after July 1, Many plans start their plan year in January so the full effect of parity won’t begin to be experienced in many markets until January 1.
Has not produced fundamental changes, the 1996 Act represented an important milestone. People with or at risk of behavioral health disorders still face widespread, arbitrary discrimination in insurance plans. Most states have adopted laws requiring parity between mental health and general health benefits in group medical insurance. As the National Business Group on Health observed in its employer’s guide to behavioral health services, heaps of parity studies have found that equalizing specialty behavioral health and general medical benefits will either not increase tal healthcare expenses anyway or will increase them by only a very modest percentage of tal healthcare premium dot 10 The real cost lies in not treating behavioral health disorders. Those opposing parity legislation often assert that it will add to the cost of health care. That’s interesting. Some attack parity legislation targeting employer provided insurance as inappropriate regulation of benefits provided at the employer’s discretion. These discriminatory practices frustrate the compelling governmental interest of protecting all Americans equally, at whatever amount of coverage the employer or the insured can afford. I know that the lack of real protection in current law against such discrimination; and the loss of life, health, and productivity attributable to these insurance barriers make it critical that Congress ensure that public and private health plans equalize medical and behavioral health benefit structures, The discrimination in health certificate against people with or at risk of behavioral health disorders.
Indeed, federal law subsidizes employers through the federal tax code for providing health certificate to employees dot 12 It is wholly appropriate for Congress to condition entitlement to such tax benefits on employers’ providing health benefits in a nondiscriminatory manner. For insurance law links for nearly any state see. Both of these challenges require education of consumers, family members, employers, purchasers, clinicians, policy makers, and the general public regarding the pros of identifying and treating problems related to mental health and substance abuse. Today, with new technologies like MRIs and PET scans that allow scientists to look inside the brain, the evidence that mental illness and addiction are brain diseases is more compelling than ever before. Reimbursement policy has not kept up with science. Below is the national Mental Health America Policy Position and Call to action regarding mental health parity in health insurance dot 1 This position paper sets the context for policy work on parity. Known the key problems are. Normally, before the passage of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act in as going to be outlined in this toolkit, the Metal Health America Policy Position and Call to Action was adopted in September 2006, So there’re still gaps in mental health and substance abuse parity and the fundamentals of the policy statement are still relevant.
On a practical note, lots of us know that there are citations in the policy paper that are that continue to be relevant and valuable in making the argument for full parity.
The federal government has greatly expanded the federal role in promoting mental health parity, With the 2008 and 2009 MHPAEA, Medicare parity improvements, and federal health care reform.
States with parity regulations provided important data to undergird arguments for federal parity. Nonetheless, it’s incumbent upon state advocates to push the envelope even further until almost any individual has access to highquality mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment services. Anyway, in many ways states have led the way to mental health certificate parity with legislation that expanded coverage for certain diagnoses and certain categories of insured lives. By its terms, however, the Act provided only that employer health plans that cover more than fifty employees and that offer mental health benefits may not impose disparate annual or lifetime dollar limits on mental health care. Keep reading. Congress ok a first step ward ending such discriminatory insurance practices when it enacted the Mental Health Parity Act of The Act established the principle that there could be no disparity in health support between mentalhealth and general medical benefits.
There’re important provisions of the law and specific exemptions that call for continued advocacy at the state level, nonetheless the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act is a huge milestone in the fight for equal treatment of medical and mental illnesses.
Now they could be asked to enforce a federal statute, possibly without a state statute or regulation to support them.
With intention to avoid confusion, all consumers and providers can call the department of Labor with a compliance issue and they will the big problem. For state regulated plans, the state insurance commissioners have primary responsibility of enforcement of parity. You should take it into account. Might be states that decide to pass a statute or develop regulations that allow them to more easily enforce the federal statute and regulations. So if state insurance commissioners do not enforce the federal statute and regulations so the Department of Labor has secondary authority to enforce. Thus, Mental Health America supports insurance parity legislation. Of course lack of understanding regarding mental health and deeprooted stigma So it’s still so common for health plans to place greater restrictions on treating behavioral health disorders than on other illnesses. Voluntary measures are not an answer to the widespread discrimination facing most insured Americans, while enlightened business leaders in I am sure that the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act was passed in 2008 to correct discriminatory health care practices against those both with a mental illness and also addiction. Significantly, the law aims to curb both the financial and nonfinancial or non quantitative ways that plans limit access to addiction and mental health care. All people in America must have a right to health care benefits, including needed behavioral health services. Without regard to diagnosis, such services should’ve been subject to identical terms and conditions as care and treatment for any other illness, severity, or cause. Have you heard of something like that before? As a matter of law, the Mental Health America calls on federal and state government to ensure that public and private health plans afford people access to needed behavioral health care and treatment on identical basis.
Facing opposition to parity proposals, legislators have in Did you know that the Act is expected to expand health care coverage to an additional 32 million citizens and legal immigrants by 2019 through a combination of ‘statebased’ private insurance exchanges and a Medicaid expansion. So Mental Health America Board of Directors approved this policy on September 8, It will remain in effect for five was passed. New law includes loads of reforms to curb harmful insurance company practices as well as provisions to slow the growth of health care costs and improve quality of care dot 15 Some key parity provisions. In September 2010, loads of mental health advocacy organizations including Mental Health America released the Parity Toolkit for Addiction Mental Health Consumers, Providers Advocates, Parity Implementation Coalition, September 2010, Edition dot 16 This excerpt from the September 2010 Toolkit gives a summary of the legislation.
