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October 2, 2008
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eNewsletter: February 13, 2007
ADDICTION RECOVERY INSURANCE EQUITY CAMPAIGN
Read testimony from the New Jersey Field Hearing on February 26th
The fight for addiction recovery insurance equity is heating up in Congress. With your help, we can enact the strongest possible insurance reforms that will help restore fairness for people seeking help and long-term recovery from their addiction. S.588, the Mental Health Parity Act, was introduced in the US Senate on February 12th. Representatives Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Jim Ramstad (R-MN) are expected to introduce a far stronger bill in the house soon.
To get ready to advocate for an end to insurance discrimination, here’s some important background information and steps that you can take today.
What is Insurance Discrimination?
Most health plans continue to impose limits on how much treatment is covered or more costly financial requirements on mental health and addiction care than on care for other health conditions, discriminating against people seeking help for addiction.
Equal coverage for drug and alcohol treatment and recovery support services would require health insurers to provide coverage at the same level as for other chronic, relapsing disorders such as diabetes and hypertension. Discriminatory policies require individuals and their family members to pay higher deductibles and co-payments and receive less coverage for number of visits, days of coverage, and annual or lifetime dollar limits for treatment.
Four states have comprehensive parity for addiction for all citizens – Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, and Vermont. Seven other states require some lesser level of coverage. The Alcohol Policy Information System lists the different coverage offered for each state.
All Federal employees have parity under the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, the largest employer-sponsored health program in the country, covering 9 million federal employees, their families, and retirees.
Recent studies have shown that the economic benefits of treating people with addiction outweigh the costs. Researchers found that the benefits outweighed the costs seven-fold, because of increased job earnings and reduced costs related to crime and imprisonment. They also found reduced costs for emergency room visits, outpatient care and residential care.
What you can do:
- Educate yourself about the need for addiction recovery insurance equity.
- Distribute our Addiction Recovery Insurance Discrimination Registry to gather stories of insurance discrimination. Print out and distribute this one-page registry form at meetings and other gatherings to document the experiences of people in your community. Use the information you gather to educate the media and policymakers about the need to end addiction recovery insurance discrimination.
- Ask your member of Congress to hold a field hearing with Representatives Kennedy and Ramstad or attend a hearing in your community. Click here for information about upcoming hearings. Please email us for information on how to organize a field hearing in your community.
- Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper using the messaging points.
Greater public attention and understanding
Representatives Kennedy and Ramstad, co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on Addiction Treatment and Recovery have been holding field hearings across the country with allied members of Congress to bring the stories of the toll of insurance discrimination and the hope of recovery to their communities and the media. The well-attended hearings have received great coverage in the media and mobilized advocates for insurance equity.
New calls for insurance reform
For years Representatives Ramstad and Kennedy have fought for equal treatment of mental illnesses and addiction in health care. Bipartisan majorities in the US House of Representatives have supported their efforts to enact the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act since 2002. Unfortunately they were never able to bring the bill to the floor of the House for a vote because they were blocked by the Republican House leadership.
The chances of passing meaningful insurance reform are improving:
- A 2006 Institute of Medicine report called for laws requiring insurers to offer the coverage that is needed for high quality, comprehensive health coverage for addiction.
- The use of addiction treatment paid for with employer-based health insurance has declined significantly over recent years – taxpayers are footing the bill for over 75 percent of treatment today. From 1992 to 2001, the percentage of people who used employer-based health coverage to pay for treatment dropped 23 percent.
- HBO’s show ADDICTION, set to air March 15, 2007, will show the impact of unfair insurance laws on families who have lost their children to addiction.
Mental illness and addiction coverage
When it comes to leveling the insurance playing field, people with addiction are being left out of the equation at the state level – most recently in Ohio and New York state, where bills to restore fairness in coverage were restricted to cover only mental illness.
Faces & Voices of Recovery and the fight for insurance equity
Faces & Voices of Recovery believes that everyone has a right to be free from addiction, regardless of the particular path taken. We know that recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs is real for millions of Americans and tens of thousands more get well every year. That’s why our Right to Addiction Recovery platform calls for “a healthcare system that fully addresses the medical needs of people with addiction to alcohol and other drugs and provides a recovery continuum of care,” calling for public and private insurance that provides access to coverage equivalent to other medical conditions.
Talking About Insurance Discrimination
Most Americans have no idea about the discrimination that people with addiction and their families face when they’re trying to get help. That’s why we need to let our friends, neighbors and opinion leaders know:
- 1. What insurance discrimination is and means
- What insurance equity will mean
Here are some ways to talk about this critical issue with your friends and neighbors:
- Insurance discrimination denies people with addiction the same insurance protection as people with other health issues.
- As a result of this discrimination, many are unable to get the treatment and recovery support services necessary to achieve long-term recovery.
- We must ensure that appropriate recovery support services and treatments are available to those who need them.
- It is crucial, therefore, that we stop insurance discrimination, which denies people with addiction from getting the same protection as people with other health issues.
- I am living proof that people can recover from addiction and make a better life for themselves and their families, but I would not have been able to do it without help and support.
- Unfortunately, many people are not so lucky. Many are denied access to services because their insurance companies will not pay for it or are not required to cover it.
- Insurance discrimination for those who need help to recover from addiction needs to end and that is what we are fighting to do.
We will be sending out more information about the proposals for insurance equity and opportunities for you to weigh in to support an end to addiction recovery insurance discrimination!