President’s Task Force Aims To Help End Discrimination In Mental Health Coverage

(By Jenny Gold for Kaiser Health News)

Tucked in remarks the president made Tuesday on the opioid epidemic was his announcement of a new task force on mental health parity — aimed at ensuring that people with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems don’t face discrimination in the health care system.

Despite a landmark 2008 law intended to do just that, enforcement has been paltry, and advocates say discrimination has continued.

“The goal of the task force is to essentially develop a set of tools, guidelines, mechanisms so that it’s actually enforced, that the concept is not just a phrase — an empty phrase,” President  Obama said during a panel discussion at the National Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. “We’ve got to let the insurance carriers know that we’re serious about this.” Read article here…..

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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