Wellstone-Domenici Act

[azulaco]

I guess I was living under a rock back in October, because I completely missed the passage of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/ ( Read more... )

Comments

[pammalamma]

We were really happy when this passed; I think it was attached to the bailout bill. Anyway, I'm not positive that it will have any kind of positive outcome for us, because it's not that all-encompassing. First of all, what it basically says is that the insurance companies have to cover mental illness the same as physical illness, if they cover mental illness at all. That keeps them from setting as many limitations, but they could potentially just all do what my insurance does, which is that it says right in my policy that mental illness is not covered.

Also, as far as I can figure from my research, it seems to apply only to group health insurance, so again, since we have private insurance, I'm not sure if it applies to us. Jason was all excited that he'd be able to get better insurance, but it doesn't say anything about who they have to accept, just that if they cover any mental illness, they must cover it the same as physical, which is what "parity" means.

My son's counselor said that the insurance company would reimburse us, but I haven't even called them yet, because of what it says in the policy about mental illness. We'll see. He has OCD, and I'm not sure if we're going to put him on meds, yet.