America Honors Recovery Awards
2010 America Honors Recovery Event was on July 28, 2010! Learn more...
The Recovery Bill of Rights
is a statement of the principle that all Americans have a right to recover from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Learn more…
The Alliance for Health's Explaining Health Reform Implementation is an excellent resource with articles, websites, timelines, and analyses of various aspects of the new health reform law.
New health care law expands access to care
The historic health care legislation signed into law by President Obama will dramatically expand benefits and coverage for people with addiction. When the law is fully implemented, 32 million Americans who are uninsured today will have access to health insurance coverage, including for addiction. The new law builds on the principle of equity for addiction with other health conditions in the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and marks significant progress in making it possible for many more Americans to get the help they need to recover from addiction.
Some of the key provisions include:
- Includes substance use disorder services are required benefits in basic benefit package for individual and small group market.
- Requires that all plans in the health insurance exchange comply with the Wellstone-Domenici Act so that substance use disorder service and mental health benefits are provided in the same ways as all other covered medical and surgical benefits.
- Expands Medicaid eligibility to 133% of the poverty limit and requires eligibility for low-income adults without dependent children, people who have been excluded until now. Substance use disorder and mental health services must be included as part of the benefits package for all newly-eligible Medicaid enrollees.
- Includes insurance reforms and consumer protections critical for individuals seeking or in recovery, including prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions including addiction, charging higher premiums based on health status, and placing annual or lifetime caps on insurance coverage.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and The Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act includes numerous provisions affecting health care coverage, the health care delivery system, and sources of revenue for the financing of reform. Some of these provisions will go into effect immediately, while some will be implemented over the next decade. The Commonwealth Fund has put together some useful timelines that help understand them:
- Health Care Reform Implementation: Health Insurance Provisions
- Health Care Reform Implementation: System and Delivery Reform Provisions
- Health Care Reform Implementation: Revenue Provisions
Expanding Opportunities for People to Get the Help They Need to Recover-
NATIONAL HEALTH CARE REFORM
Members of Congress and the Obama administration are hard at work on proposals to reform the nation’s healthcare system. Faces & Voices of Recovery belongs to the Coalition for Whole Health, a group of national addiction prevention, treatment and recovery and mental health organizations. We are working together to ensure that health care reform proposals include a full and equitable health responses to addiction and recovery.
Despite months of hearings and committee votes, there are still many hurdles to go through before Congress finalizes its health reform bill. The Washington Post put together a wonderful graph describing the many steps ahead
January 15, 2010
Congress is debating a final health reform bill. Here’s a letter that was sent by the Coalition for Health to key Congressional leaders as they deliberate and here’s a comparision of provisions in the House- and Senate-passed bills.
Here is a revised side-by-side comparing key addiction and mental health provisions in the House- and Senate-approved bills.
Here is a timeline for implementation of various House and Senate provisions.
January 7, 2010
As members of Congress come back to Washington after the holiday recess, it appears that a formal conferenced committee will not be convened to resolve differences between the House- and Senate-passed health reform bills. Instead, Democratic leaders will probably hammer out the differences between the two bills first and then the House will take up the Senate’s bill with the agreed-to changes. If that effort succeeds, the next step will be to send the bill back to the Senate for a vote. If that effort succeeds, the bill would then go to President Obama for his signature.
December 2, 2009
The US Senate is now debating its version of health reform. Senators will be considering various amendments to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Debate is expected to go through the month of December and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has stated that Senators may be working over the holidays.
Here’s a chart comparing the House-passed health reform bill and Senate proposed bill
There are still many hurdles to go through before Congress finalizes its health reform bill. The Washington Post put together a useful chart describing the many steps ahead before a bill would arrive on President Obama’s desk for signature.
November 14, 2009
Last Saturday the US House of Representatives passed its version of health reform, HR 3962, by a vote of 220 to 215. Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) said that, “a key aspect of the Affordable Health Care for America Act that is of particular importance to me is the extension of the mental health parity protections established into law last year by my legislation, the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. Not only are these protections extended to all plans in the Health Insurance Exchange, but mental health and substance use benefits are a part of the essential benefits package created by this legislation.” The bill would also expand Medicaid eligibility up to 150% of the federal poverty line, including childless adults.
Attention now shifts to the Senate, where a final bill has yet to come to the floor for debate and a vote. Once the Senate passes its bill, the two chambers will need to reconcile the differences in a conference committee before a final bill can be sent to the President's desk for his signature. Because of all of the hurdles that remain, it’s possible that a final vote on a bill may not happen until early 2010. To see how your Representative voted, click here.
October 19, 2009
US House of Representatives: Three committees in the US House of Representative are responsible for health reform legislation and they have completed their work. The committees are the Energy and Commerce; Ways and Means and Education and Labor committees and the name of the bill is America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200). Congressional staff have been working to combine the versions of the bill as passed by the House Committees so that the full House of Representatives can take it up. Members of the House have been working on a combined bill as well.
US Senate: The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have completed work on their bills, which will be combined and brought to the Senate floor for a vote.
Once the House and Senate have passed their versions of health care reform, the differences between the House and Senate bills will be negotiated and a compromise version is tentatively scheduled to be voted on by both chambers before year’s end.
Mental Health & Addiction Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Key Provisions included in all House and Senate bills (including Senate Finance Committee bill that is still being worked on):
- Addiction & mental health are included in all proposals’ minimum benefits packages.
- The Wellstone/Domenici parity law must be applied to all plans in the House and Senate bills.
- The House Education and Labor Committee passed a provision to include mental health and substance use disorder services, including screening and brief interventions, as covered preventative services
- The House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Finance Committee passed a provision to include the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the list of federal agencies that will be consulted for the development of a national prevention and wellness plan
- The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a provision to authorize workforce development grants for providers of mental health and substance use disorder services
- Use our Online Advocacy Action Center to contact your elected officials in Washington, DC.
- Listen to our July 14, 2009 teleconference on health reform and the recovery community.
MP3 
PDF 
PPT 
- Keep informed. Here are some recent background articles of interest:
Pay for Health Reform with an Alcohol Tax, Lloyd I. Sederer and Eric Goplerud, September 28, 2009, Washington Post
In Reforming Our Health Care System, We'd Be Crazy to Ignore the Mind, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, July 22, 2009, Huffington Post
Positive Prognosis for Addiction Treatment in Healthcare Reform, by Bob Curley, July 26, 2009, Join Together
Unforeseen Benefits: Addiction Treatment Reduces Health Care Costs, Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap, July 16, 2009.
Other Health Care Reform Resources
- Health Care Reform Clearinghouse
- Kaiser Daily Health Policy Daily Reports
- RWJF Daily News Digest: Health Reform
- Join Together
- US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Health System Reform A Framework for Discussion
- Trust for America’s Health Prevention and Wellness in Health Care reform resources
- Congressional Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus June 11, 2009 briefing on Reducing Health Care Costs: Chronic Disease Management for Alcohol and Drug Problems
Coalition for Whole Health background documents:
- Summary of Recommendations for Including Mental Illness and Substance Use in Health Reform
- Benefit Design and the Delivery of Care
- Reforming the Health Care Delivery System
- Wellness Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Initiatives
The Whole Health Campaign is another coalition that Faces & Voices belongs to. Check out their website for other useful background documents: