Time to pass mental health parity

The AMA is part of a coalition that supports new Senate legislation to close some gaps in the law requiring equal insurance coverage for mental illness.

Editorial. March 12, 2007.

Cancer. High blood pressure. Depression. Heart disease. All are serious medical conditions that affect millions of Americans. All are treatable. So shouldn't they all be covered equally by health plans?

The sad fact is that insurers have long singled out one of those diseases -- depression -- for lesser coverage. Benefits for mental illness in general often come up short in comparison with those for physical conditions.

Even with passage of the 1996 mental health parity act, barring different dollar limits on annual and life-time benefits, discrimination remained. Higher patient cost-sharing, limits on the number of days in the hospital, and caps on the number of outpatient mental health visits are still common.

That double standard would end if new mental health parity legislation introduced in the Senate passes Congress and is signed into law.

The bipartisan bill is the culmination of more than a year of negotiations between lawmakers, mental health organizations and the traditional foes of such measures: insurers and the business industry.

It has the strong support of the Coalition for Fairness in Mental Illness Coverage, which includes the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Assn. and several other health care and patient advocacy groups.

Under this legislation, group health plans no longer would be able to charge higher deductibles, co-payments or other out-of-pocket costs for mental health care. Patients no longer would face tighter restrictions on the number of days in the hospital or outpatient visits. Substance abuse is included in its protections.