Parity for Addiction and Mental Health

Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 | Current Advocacy: Implementation

One of LAC's key issues on the national level is a health problem that afflicts one in ten Americans and one of every four children: alcohol and drug addiction and mental illness. Untreated, these diseases wreak havoc on the child welfare, criminal justice and healthcare systems, on our communities, and on our families.

Long before the passage of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, the medical establishment in the U.S. recognized that addiction and mental ilnness are diseases, and that medical treatment is an appropriate, effective and even cost-saving response. But with the 2008 parity law -- which LAC and its advocacy partner State Associations of Addiction Services (SAAS) strongly advocated for -- came the promise of health benefits provided at the same levels all other covered medical and surgical procedures.

As passed, the law is designed to:

• Improve access to lifesaving drug and alcohol addiction treatment services. Of the 22.3 million Americans with alcohol or drug problems in 2007, only 2.4 million-roughly one in ten-received treatment at a specialty treatment facility, leaving 21.1 million untreated. Over thirty percent of the people who needed treatment but didn't receive it cited lack of health insurance coverage or other cost factors as a major reason for not receiving care.
• Eliminate a clearly discriminatory policy that has kept thousands of individuals with untreated addiction from receiving critically important treatment services. Providing parity will help to eliminate stigma for alcohol and drug addiction, by treating addiction similarly to other chronic health conditions like diabetes, asthma, and hypertension.
• Ease costs for the public system. According to SAMHSA's recent National Expenditure Report, public funding provides the vast majority of drug addiction treatment expenditures, increasing from 62 percent in 1991 to 76 percent in 2001. Private insurance represented only 13 percent of addiction treatment expenditures in 2001, while it covered 36 percent of all health care expenditures.

Current Advocacy: Implementation

Since the passage of the new parity law, LAC has been working on multiple fronts to ensure strong implementation. In addition to our work through the Coalition for Whole Health and the National Advocacy Campaign, we have released the following advocacy tools:

Helpful Materials

• October 2008 LAC one-pager summarizing major provisions of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA)
• Comments submitted by LAC/SAAS in May 2009 to the federal Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury on the need for future rules governing the MHPAEA to ensure that people who need SUD treatment are better able to receive those lifesaving services
• February 2010 LAC summary of major provisions of the MHPAEA Interim Final Rule
• Comments submitted by LAC/SAAS in April 2010 to the federal Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury in response to the MHPAEA Interim Final Rule
• April 2010 LAC presentation on the MHPAEA Interim Final Rule

• Parity 101 (PDF):Provides an overview of the Federal Wellstone/Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, including the provisions of the law and the recently released Interim Final Rule (Feb. 2011).
• Parity 201 (PDF): Includes a detailed discussion about implementation for the new parity law. It features details on state-level implementation efforts, interplay between the federal parity law and state parity law, and anticipated additional pieces of regulatory guidance (March 2011).