Background
Historically individuals have faced medical and social boundaries for accessing mental health services. Health insurance plans discriminated against people living with a mental illness by offering fewer benefits and more restrictions for mental health treatment than medical treatment. To account for the disparity in services, the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 (MHPA) was enacted by Congress. The law represented progress in mental health policy, but it “did not address treatment limits, the restrictions on the types of facilities covered, differences in cost sharing, and the application of managed care techniques” (Health Affairs, 2014). Thus, the U.S. government made a second attempt to correct discriminatory health care practices by enacting the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA). MHPAEA increased access to mental health and substance abuse care through insurance coverage and ensured fairness between lifetime and annual financial limits for mental health and medical benefits. MHPAEA was an advancement of MHPA, but disparity of services still exists especially for at-risk populations like racial and ethnic minorities groups. …show more content…
According to the National Healthcare Disparities Report (2012), minority and low-income groups are receiving below average health care quality, their access to mental services is getting worse, and disparities are not changing” (DHHS, 2013). This suggests that the government’s initiative of enacting MHPAEA to bring equality between mental health and medical health benefits has not come to fruition because a disproportionate amount of minorities are still facing preventable disparities in mental health
Historically individuals have faced medical and social boundaries for accessing mental health services. Health insurance plans discriminated against people living with a mental illness by offering fewer benefits and more restrictions for mental health treatment than medical treatment. To account for the disparity in services, the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 (MHPA) was enacted by Congress. The law represented progress in mental health policy, but it “did not address treatment limits, the restrictions on the types of facilities covered, differences in cost sharing, and the application of managed care techniques” (Health Affairs, 2014). Thus, the U.S. government made a second attempt to correct discriminatory health care practices by enacting the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA). MHPAEA increased access to mental health and substance abuse care through insurance coverage and ensured fairness between lifetime and annual financial limits for mental health and medical benefits. MHPAEA was an advancement of MHPA, but disparity of services still exists especially for at-risk populations like racial and ethnic minorities groups. …show more content…
According to the National Healthcare Disparities Report (2012), minority and low-income groups are receiving below average health care quality, their access to mental services is getting worse, and disparities are not changing” (DHHS, 2013). This suggests that the government’s initiative of enacting MHPAEA to bring equality between mental health and medical health benefits has not come to fruition because a disproportionate amount of minorities are still facing preventable disparities in mental health