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A jewel in the $700 billion bailout package
Published on Friday, Oct 10, 2008
An estimated 26 percent of Americans suffer from diagnosable mental illnesses and disorders every year, resulting in enormous stress on families and in workplaces and communities. The assurance of comparable coverage for mental illnesses and disorders comes none too soon. It is telling, all the same, that critical as it is, parity in coverage made it into law only as part of a bill Congress and the White House desperately needed to approve to shore up confidence in the financial system.
The mental-health law, most of which will take effect in a year, requires businesses with more than 50 employees that offer mental health benefits in their insurance plans to make no distinctions in coverage between mental illnesses and addictions (for example, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and alcoholism) and other illnesses such as heart disease or asthma.
The new law bars health plans from setting treatment limits, for example, imposing caps on the number of doctor visits and hospitalizations. It prohibits insurers from charging higher deductibles and co-payments for mental-health and substance abuse treatments than they do for other medical care. Further, they must offer coverage for out-of-network care for the mentally ill if they offer similar out-of-network coverage for other medical ailments.
Treatments for mental disorders and illnesses continue to improve in effectiveness. Disparities in coverage prove harmful to millions of patients when arbitrary caps force them to pay high out-of-pocket costs or abandon treatments that can restore mental stability and a degree of productivity. The new law closes a gap that long has been indefensible.
Get the full article here.
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