Forget the websites. Who lied. Who knew. The federal government issued new rules regarding health insurance coverage under Obamacare. The New York Times reported:
The Obama administration on Friday will complete a generation-long effort to require insurers to cover care for mental health and addiction just like physical illnesses when it issues long-awaited regulations defining parity in benefits and treatment.
The rules, which will apply to almost all forms of insurance, will have far-reaching consequences for many Americans. In the White House, the regulations are also seen as critical to President Obama’s program for curbing gun violence by addressing an issue on which there is bipartisan agreement: Making treatment more available to those with mental illness could reduce killings, including mass murders.
According to administration officials, the rule would ensure that health plans’ co-payments, deductibles and limits on visits to health care providers are not more restrictive or less generous for mental health benefits than for medical and surgical benefits. Significantly, the regulations would clarify how parity applies to residential treatments and outpatient services, where much of the care for people with addictions or mental illnesses occurs.
Insurance companies have raised concerns about the expense involved in paying for the lengthy and intensive courses of treatment that the final regulations address. But experts have said the rules are not expected to significantly add to the cost of coverage because so few patients require these levels of care.....
Any geographic or facility-type limitations would have to be comparable for medical and mental health benefits. For example, an administration official said, an insurer “can’t say you can only get substance-abuse treatment in state but you can go anywhere for medical/surgical.”
The regulations, which specifically put into effect the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, would affect most Americans with insurance — roughly 85 percent of the population — whether their policies are from employer plans, other group plans, or coverage purchased in the market for individual plans.
The final parity rules do not apply to health plans that manage care for millions of low-income people on Medicaid. However, the administration has previously issued guidance to state health officials saying that such plans should meet the parity requirements of the 2008 law..... Article
Finance blogger Mish took issue with the "so few patients require this level of care" argument:
Supposedly costs won't rise much because few people demand mental health services. Well, watch what happens when you mandate expanded "free" services.
And if by some amazing miracle additional free services do not increase costs, it's important to note that a small percentage of people are responsible for huge portions of
And included this little chart.
14 comments:
Can't read this......just gets worse and worse.
And the first time you use your new mental health coverage.....there go your guns.
Thanks again to those senators and representatives who had no problem in allowing this crap to be funded.
We screamed DEFUND and you good old boys sat by and watched everyone get screwed.
Many of these "patients" will be in Re-Hab forever. Then the Street People will receive shelter in these facilities. Prisoners will receive mental health diagnosis, in lieu of jail. Re-Habbers will be re-runners, in and out of the facilities again and again. Government and state studies show almost 20% of the population is mental ill. Damn, Damn, Damn.
The damage of ObamaCare is just starting and it will not go away. It is incredibly important that anyone who thinks it will collapse on its own weight be disabused of that notion.
If Republicans cannot manipulate the law by having constructive alternatives that appeal to the broader public, the health care system is destroyed and we only have ourselves to blame.
This is not good. Charles Whitman needed more help than George Jones, and the system won't have enough money to treat them both as mental health patients. I agree with 2:48 above - our system is doomed if we can't win control of Congress and come up with something better than the ACA.
3:15 you're right. How do you suggest we get rid of the cronyism on all levels?
I'm not talking about cronyism. I'm talking about a shrinking tax base that is going to be expected to take care of a growing patient base.
But now that you mention it, I think you take the cronyism out of health care by taking the federal government out of health care. All they are is an additional insurance company, one loaded down with bureaucracy and corruption at every level. Start by letting health care go back to being everyone's individual responsibility and let the local communities and state governments provide care for those who need it and can't afford it.
State insurance commissioners have the baby with the reinstatements of cancelled policies. Parity is now in their lap. The state legislatures, the lobby, and committee rooms will be packed in the several statehouses. Its going to be a bawl among the professional groups with the worked insured slogging away at their workplaces while the interest groups have the ears of the powerful.
Diseases of the brain are no different than diseases of the body. Kudos to the Administration for requiring insurers to cover both equally. And alcoholism/addiction is a disease and has been recognized as such by the AMA since the early 1950's.
This is a GOOD thing.
President Compulsive Liar will go down as the worst in United States history.
Make AA and 12 steps part of the core curriculum in public schools and all our problems would be solved.
If only it were true that the mentally ill wouldn't have access to guns anymore.
If only more troubled children would get the help they needed before they became a threat to others.
But, our society no longer sees the bullies as needing mental health help, just the bullied.
Crazy is " in". Crazy behavior results in celebrity status. Crazy wins elections as crazy is now a voting block. Crazy has political legitimacy and is given Orwellian nouns like terrorism or adjectives like " far" as in " far right or far left". Crazies take over organizations by scaring off the rational. Crazies , along with the ignorant and intellectually challenged make wonderful foot soldiers for sociopaths.
Therein lies the problem. We spend a lot of time comparing others to our infamous crazies like Hitler and Stalin without ever bothering to learn how it was such people were able to rise to power in the first place. We think ourselves superior to the masses of Germans and Russians who initially supported these awful men. We think in political philosophies rather than notice how they assigned blame and demonized their opposition so it became okay to kill them eventually.
That curve won't soar and crazies will still have guns. It's only a very small percentage of crazies who will seek help or parents who will admit " little Johnny" isn't quite right.
President Complete Incompetent caught again.
CNN: Private consulting firm warned of glitches before healthcare.gov launch
A newly disclosed report indicates that officials in the Obama administration and the Department of Health and Human Services received warnings from a private consultant group that the federal online healthcare enrollment site could potentially fail to function properly for the October 1 launch date.
.....
The Obama administration has come under fire for the botched October 1 launch of healthcare.gov. The site has been plagued with technical issues barring many enrollees from signing up for the federal exchange though the site. This report suggests problems were brought to the attention of key officials as early as March.
The administration has said the President didn't know of problems with the Affordable Care Act's website until after its fumbled rollout - even though insurance companies had been complaining and the site crashed during a pre-launch test run.
CNN received the report from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The committee said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius received a briefing at the HHS headquarters with these concerns on April 4, along with acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Marilyn Tavenner and White House chief technology officer Todd Park. Park was also present at a briefing on March 28 at the CMS headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.
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