Bill Persinger has found a reason to celebrate one of the “earmarks” that were added to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act passed this month by the U.S. Congress.
Mental health parity was one of a list of items that became part of the EESA. The earmarks were estimated to cost about $150 billion, in addition to the $700 billion for the economic bail-out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two are the nation’s largest subprime mortgage lenders and were on the brink of bankruptcy.
“We had been encouraging support for mental health parity for many years,” said Persinger, executive director of the seven-county Mental Health Center of East-Central Kansas. “I guess, for lack of a better word, the economic bailout law provided an opportunity to get that done.”
Parity will allow patients who need treatment for mental health problems to receive it without some of the major restrictions that previously have limited treatment.
Mental health advocates for years have objected to insurance policies that discriminated against mentally ill patients. That legislation came in the form of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. The act had been approved, in a compromise form, and was awaiting the president’s signature.
“Basically what this means is that if you have health insurance ... that you’re going to be offered, or you will have available to you, coverage for mental health or mental illness problems,” Persinger said. “... In other words, you can’t discriminate against the mentally ill or those who are addicted to alcohol and drugs. You can’t discriminate against someone who has heart disease and someone who has mental disease.”
In the past, treatment for mental illnesses often came with multiple restrictions and other criteria that often made treatment difficult to obtain or to complete.
The mental health parity addendum is expected to change that.
Kansas already had its own version of mental health parity, as did several other states.
“But there were always some ifs, ands, and buts, you know, some conditions or stipulations put on it. It wasn’t what we call full parity, complete parity,” Persinger said.
Persinger’s understanding is that state laws already in place will be preserved, unless they are below the minimum federal standards for parity.
The effects on existing Kansas law is now under study.
“Our accident and health division is studying the proposals right now as we speak,” said Bob Hanson, public information officer for the Kansas Insurance Department. “That’s something that since that legislation came out a week ago, they have been gathering the information. I haven’t seen any final evaluation of it yet but I’m expecting to see it this week.”
The new law has three provisions that the Kansas Insurance Department considers loopholes, according to the Kansas Health Institute:
F Insurers have the option of not covering mental illness.
F Companies will be allowed to opt out for a year if their costs increase more than 2 percent the first year and 1 percent in subsequent years.
F Companies have the option of deciding which mental illnesses will be covered and which will not.
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Posted by tom_smith (anonymous) on October 23, 2008 at 10:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
As you note in your helpful article, the passage of the mental health parity bill may be lost in the economic focus of the $700 billion bail out bill. But the parity bill is not lost to the many people in Kansas who suffer from or are related to someone with a mental illness. Long after the economy is on the road to recovery, the parity bill will still be helping people with mental health problems and their families. While the bill is certainly not perfect, and there is still legislative activity needed (especially on the state level here in Kansas and many other states), it is a gigantic, and overdue, step in the right direction.
Tom Smith
Author of “A Balanced Life” and Co-Founder of the Karla Smith Foundation
http://karlasmithfoundation.org/
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