Health Policy Reform

The nation is preparing for national healthcare reform, and Congress and the Obama  Administration have already begun taking up the healthcare debate.  Successful national healthcare reform must include equitable and adequate drug and alcohol addiction treatment and recovery support requirements in all public and private health care plans and must promote prevention, early intervention, recovery, and research.

• Alcohol and drug addiction is a preventable and treatable chronic disease - just like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Adequate funding for addiction treatment yields results and returns similar to the treatment of other chronic diseases.
• Research shows that a healthcare approach is the most effective means to reduce drug and alcohol addiction and the damaging consequences of untreated addiction.
• By expanding and improving the health response to addiction, healthcare reform can save tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, while strengthening families and communities across the country.

Any healthcare reform proposals considered by Congress must increase the capacity of drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services by ensuring that all public and private plans provide adequate and non-discriminatory insurance coverage of addiction treatment, as well as by expanding access to Medicaid and other public funding.  Congress should build on the success of the recently enacted Paul Wellstone and Pete

Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act by passing meaningful healthcare reform that ensures access to comprehensive and universal coverage of addiction treatment and mental health services to all Americans.   Specifically:

• Healthcare reform should incorporate the principles of the recently passed parity law and include addiction and mental health coverage equally and adequately, with no greater costs or limitations than comparable medical/surgical coverage. Any federal healthcare reform legislation should ensure that State laws which provide better consumer protections remain in effect and are not preempted.
• Healthcare reform should ensure that the full range of alcohol and drug prevention, intervention, screening, diagnosis, treatment and recovery support services are available and accessible to all who need them.
• Determinations about who needs what services, levels of care, and lengths of stay must be made by treatment professionals, and managed care cannot be used to deny needed care. Criteria and reasons for denial must be disclosed.
• Healthcare reform should include coverage of family treatment services, so that family members of people with drug and alcohol addiction can get the care they need throughout the recovery process.

By ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable quality healthcare-including equal and adequate addiction and mental health treatment and recovery support services-healthcare reform can greatly advance public health, improve lives, save large sums of taxpayer dollars, and strengthen families and communities across the country.

Even as the extremely important process of enacting healthcare reform moves forward, drug and alcohol addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery should be addressed immediately in order to save tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in health, welfare, criminal justice and social costs. If the U.S. took only the first step of providing treatment and recovery services to an additional one million Americans annually - five percent of those who receive no care - it would cost approximately $4 billion per year. With a cost savings of $7.00 to $12.00 per dollar spent on treatment, the investment of the first $4 billion would  yield $28 to $48 billion in projected savings in healthcare and social costs.

Click here for more information on the Legal Action Center's work on national healthcare reform

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