President Biden announced new action to help guarantee access to mental health care, making sure insurers pay for mental health care like they would physical health benefits, CNN reports.

The new rule reinforces 2008’s Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), requiring insurers “to make sure people have equivalent access between their mental health and medical benefits” and making it easier to enforce compliance when insurers break the law.

“Folks, you know, I don’t know what the difference is between breaking your arm and having a mental breakdown is – it’s health, there’s no distinction. It’s health,” Biden said during a White House event this week. “You know, we can all agree, mental health care is health care. It is health care, it’s essential to people’s well-being and their ability to lead a full and productive life, to find joy, to find purpose, to take care of themselves and their loved ones. It’s about dignity.”

On Tuesday, Biden criticized the current state of mental health coverage in the United States, noting that “for millions of Americans, mental health care and treatment for substance abuse is out of reach,” while observing that, in 2020, less than half of adults diagnosed with mental illness received care.

“For children, the number is even worse: Nearly 70% of our kids who seek care for mental health or addiction cannot get it – 70%,” he said. “Talk to parents and teachers, talk to the school nurses and counselors, talk to young people, they’ll tell you there’s a serious youth mental health crisis happening right now in this country. We must fulfill the promise of true mental health parity for all Americans.”

The Biden administration has noted that insurers have been dodging their responsibility to comply with the existing parity law by making it harder to find mental health care in-network. Many insurers lists of mental health providers in-network are actually “ghost networks,” where few of the providers listed actually treat patients, forcing people to seek mental health care out of network – and therefore, pay out of pocket.

As White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden explained at a press conference, “This rule will stop the industry evasion that has led millions of people to pay for care even when they have insurance,” Tanden said.

Read the full article here. Or learn more at Politico here or here.

Judd, Donald. “Biden pledges ‘Mental health care is health care’ with new rule ensuring mental health parity in insurance coverage.” CNN.com, 25 Jul 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/25/politics/biden-mental-health-care-coverage/index.html.

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