How Does Mental Health & Addiction Treatment End Up In Health Care Reform?

The federal government has empowered each state to define their own set of health care standards that all insurance plans within that state must meet by 2014. This provides flexibility to the states to define the minimum benefits of plans offered in each state, but almost guarantees that each state will be different than the others. These differences will prevent insurance plans from being able to serve multiple states and will shrink the pool of people in each plan. This also leaves mental health and addiction treatment in the hands of bureaucrats.

Making the treatment of mental health and addiction part of the minimum benefits for all plans will provide relief to millions of untreated individuals. By providing care within the health insurance policies, the needed therapies can lessen the emergency room visits and help to transition these sufferers into productive citizens again. Let's make sure they are not forgotten.

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