Sleeping with the Enemy: Update on the “Mental Health Parity” Law
Insurance companies and employer groups are lobbying the White House to delay and rework the rules on “mental health parity.” Insurers and many employers supported the 2008 law, but they say the rules go far beyond the intent of Congress and would cripple their cost-control techniques while raising out-of-pocket costs for of the mentally ill.
Full article on rules issued for mental health parity law.
They (the insurance companies and the employers)are getting exactly what they deserve. I have no sympathy.
Bruce, unfortunately you are going to pay for this whether you sympathize or not. The costs are passed through to the innocent.
Right. They get what they deserve, but we pay for what they deserve.
This sort of meddling is only the beginning. I assume everyone both in and out of the industry knows that.
I agree. Costs are always passed on to the consumer.
Around 1990 I applied for a job as an assistant controller at a free-standing, psychiatric facility in Texas. I didn’t get the job — they told me an internal candidate, with similar experience, was offered the position. A few months later an expose’ appeared in the Dallas Morning News about how this chain of psychiatric facilities (among others) would admit well-insured patients (typically teenagers) suffering from garden-variety anxiety or depression, by convincing family members the patients were suicide risks. Once the insurance benefits were all maxed out, the psych hospital would discharge the patient as miraculously cured!
Under poorly-written mental health parity regulations, we can expect more of this type of gaming the system – except this time there will be no limit on psychiatric benefits.