| Healthcare Reforms Significantly Improve Coverage for People with Mental Illnesses
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Contact: Traci Patterson
Director of Communications
713-523-8963 x 476
Email: tpatterson@mhahouston.org
www.mhahouston.org
HOUSTON, TX (December 22, 2009) — As the US Senate continues its final hours of the health care reform debate, Mental Health America of Greater Houston reports that people with mental illness and/or substance use disorders fair well in both the House and Senate versions of the federal health care reform bill. Both versions continue to end discrimination of mental illnesses and/or substance use disorders, as first enacted in the 2008 Wellstone-Domenici Law, and expand access to care for individuals with behavioral health care needs. Specific provisions found in both pieces of legislation include:
- Expanding behavioral health care parity
- Prohibiting pre-existing condition exclusions and lifetime limits on benefits, as well as limiting out of pocket expenses for individuals and families
- Creating state exchanges that will offer affordable coverage that will be required to offer mental health and substance use disorder services
- Establishing the Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Demonstration Project aimed at providing medical assistance to certain Medicaid beneficiaries in need of stabilization during a psychiatric emergency
- Providing funding to increase training for behavioral health care professionals
- Encouraging the development of “medical homes” for Medicaid/Medicare beneficiaries, including those with mental illness
- Providing financial assistance for low-income individuals and families to make coverage more affordable and accessible, as well as expanding Medicaid to cover more low-income individuals
“Behavioral health care advocates should be encouraged by the fact that our legislators in Washington have made mental illness and substance use disorders a priority in the health care reform process,” said Betsy Schwartz, president and CEO of Mental Health America of Greater Houston.
Schwartz also says, “Increasing health care coverage that includes behavioral health care services benefits us all because it is easier and cheaper to treat these disorders before a person goes into crisis, which is what happens now. These uninsured individuals end up in our emergency rooms and jails when many times they could be successfully treated in other less expensive and more appropriate settings that allow them to be productive members of our community.”
It is estimated that 186,000 children and 552,000 adults in Harris County have a mental illness. Approximately 75% of Harris County children with a severe mental illness do not receive treatment services, while over half of the adults in Harris County with a severe mental illness have no public or private health insurance and are completely dependent on the public mental health service system for treatment.
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