Phyllis Vine of MIWatch.org, a site about mental illness, writes that last year’s mental health parity legislation has run into problems. According to Vine, if federal rules for implementing the Wellstone-Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act are not in place by the Oct. 3 deadline, treatment for many could be delayed or stopped.
The act requires insurers to treat mental illness the same way they do physical ailments, eliminating higher co-pays, deductibles and limits on hospital stays. Vine provides some background:
We should recall that parity was hotly debated before two bills (HR 1424 in the House, S 558 in the Senate) were folded into last year’s stimulus package. It was an initiative supported by a unique collaboration between advocates in the mental health community and those in the addiction community, with coverage extending to the self-insured and to those in Medicaid managed care. The House initiative, led by Reps. Patrick Kennedy and Jim Ramstad, wanted to base treatment criteria on the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Insurance and business were able to determine that the Senate’s bill allow them to define “medical need.”
Vine writes that insurance companies are now trying to sabotage the law in an attempt to preserve profits. Letters from the American Benefits Council and Wellpoint Inc., sent during the public comment period, ask for exclusions of some conditions, treatments, providers and limits on the number of visits patients can make.
