Mental Health Parity Fact of the Day
Members of the Screen Actors Guild recently read in their health plan’s newsletter that, beginning in January, almost 12,000 of its participants will lose access to treatment for mental-health and substance-abuse issues.
The guild’s health plan represents one of a small number of unions, employers and insurers that are scrapping such benefits for their enrollees because of a 2008 law that requires that mental-health and substance-abuse benefits, if offered, be as robust as medical or surgical benefits. By dropping such coverage, providers can circumvent the requirements.
Others that have made the same move include the Plumbers Welfare Fund, representing about 3,500 members in the Chicago area, and Woodman’s Food Market, a chain in Wisconsin with 13 stores and about 2,200 employees.
Here’s the full Wall Street Journal article.
See also David Henderson’s post on the subject at EconLog.
Unintended consequences? Or did they know all along?
Another example of the adage that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
The trouble with mental health parity is there is no objective standard for what constitutes a mental condition. See http://www.ncpathinktank.org/pub/ba410/
How are all those semi-employed actors supposed to pay for psycho-analysis three times a week? I guess Woody Allen doesn’t have to worry. Presumably, he’s covered by the Directors Guild plan.
Tyler Cowen has posted quite a few references on the economics of mental health care at Marginal Revolution here:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/12/economics-and-mental-health-care.html
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