Mental Health Parity Would Still Leave Millions Uninsured

Since Republicans are usually averse to adding government mandates onto the business community, we were surprised to see President George W. Bush come out in favor of mental health benefit parity legislation.

The temptation is to say, “It's about time.” After all, it just isn't fair to have health plans treat coverage for treatment of mental illness differently from any other health problem.

However, while it is easy to approve unfunded mandates, it is shortsighted to ignore the economic and social consequences of such actions. Employers are already struggling with soaring healthcare costs, so forcing health plans to upgrade mental health coverage will make those expenses that much harder to contain. The probability is that more employers will drop coverage altogether, or pass more of the bill along to employees.

Still, we will not argue the merits of this particular initiative, because common sense and common decency dictate that those with mental health problems should not be discriminated against by their health plans.

In addition, the parity bill in Congress backed by President Bush is extremely modest. It would exempt small businesses. It would not require employers to provide health insurance, nor require those who do provide benefits to cover mental health. It would simply require those who do cover both physical and mental health to treat all claims equally.

However, our objection is that we once again find ourselves arguing over a sliver of the healthcare pie, when tens of millions are still going hungry for benefits. Mental health coverage is important, but so is prescription drug coverage, and so is the fact that so many millions lack any insurance at all.

President Bush has appointed a new commission to identify ways to better coordinate public and private mental health systems. What he needs to do is appoint a commission with a much more ambitious mandate–to figure out how everyone can get affordable coverage without forcing employers to dump health benefits altogether.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, May 13, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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Mental Health Parity Would Still Leave Millions Uninsured

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