University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law Faculty Scholarship Francis King Carey School of Law Faculty 2013 Equality Standards for Health Insurance Coverage: Will the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act End the Discrimination? Ellen M. Weber University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, and the Health Law and Policy Commons Digital Commons Citation 43 Golden Gate University Law Review 179 (2013). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Francis King Carey School of Law Faculty at DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Weber: Equality Standards for Health Insurance Coverage ARTICLE EQUALITY STANDARDS FOR HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE: WILL THE MENTAL HEALTH PARITY AND ADDICTION EQUITY ACT END THE DISCRIMINATION? ELLEN WEBER Congress enacted the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act in 2008 to end discriminatory health insurance coverage for persons with mental health and substance use disorders in large employer health plans. Adopting a comprehensive regulatory approach akin to that of other civil rights laws, the Parity Act requires “equity” in all plan features, including cost-sharing, durational limits and, most critically, the plan management practices that are used to deny many families medically necessary behavioral health care. Beginning in 2014, all health plans regulated by the Affordable Care Act must also comply with parity standards, effectively ending the second-class insurance status of persons with these disorders.