What is mental health parity legislation?
Commercial health insurance plans typically offer limited coverage for mental health treatment, compared to the coverage available for physical health and surgical treatments. The federal Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 (implemented in 1998) prohibited private insurance plans from setting different lifetime and annual spending limits for mental health coverage than for medical/surgical care coverage. Employers that experience a premium increase of more than 1 percent as a result of parity were able to apply for an exemption. None did so. The 1996 law was set to expire September 30, 2001, but the U.S. Congress has extended the 1996 law each year since 2001. In November 2003, Congress extended the law again to December 31, 2004. In discussions of new mental health parity bills, concerns have been raised that mental health parity will increase the cost of health premiums and lead to increasing the number of uninsured. Parity laws vary from state to state. Some statutes restrict parity to
