Industry News
Proposed Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act to provide parity
Individuals and families who experience dual disorders have limited insurance resources available. With the advent of managed care, insurance companies created “behavioral health” to artificially separate brain and body illness. This was a cost containment measure that has created discrimination in healthcare.
In 1996, the Mental Health Parity Act was signed into federal law, which provides parity in aggregate lifetime and annual dollar limits on mental health benefits with dollar limits on medical/surgical benefits. This applies to any group health insurance plan that provides mental health benefits. This has been considered partial parity as it does not cover addiction and “wiggle room” still exists for insurers.
Rep. Jim Ramstead (R-MN) and Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) are co-sponsoring the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act (HR 1424). This plan is modeled on the Federal Employers Health Benefit Program, which has covered federal workers and their dependents and members of Congress and their dependents since 2001. Under this legislation, no state laws that provide greater consumer protections, benefits, methods of access to benefits, rights or remedies would be preempted. This would apply to group health plans that cover 50 or more employees. Parity legislation ensures that a plan’s mental health and addictive disorder benefit must be equal in co-pay rates and co-deductible to its primary health benefit.