The White House argued its case this week that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will improve mental health care access.

Cecilia Muñoz, a White House blogger, said the PPACA ban on medical underwriting will keep health plans from using mental illnesses as a reason to deny applications for coverage or charge people with those conditions higher rates.

An earlier law, the Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act, already requires both individual and group health plans that offer both medical and mental health benefits to offer comparable medical and mental health benefits, and PPACA will expand access to mental health and substance abuse benefits, Muñoz wrote.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Allison Bell

Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.