Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Who would have thought that this horrible work environment would have a positive side–but it does! I haven’t kept a single bite of food inside me for longer than an hour in the past week. In six days, I’ve lost 14 pounds! My pants are loose! I’ve never lost so much weight so fast.

In other good news–which I totally missed until this weekend–there was a mental health parity bill attached to the bailout bill. The previous mental health care parity act said that insurance companies couldn’t put a lower cap on money spent for mental health care than the cap they had on physical health care. Insurance companies got around this by keeping the spending caps the same, but limiting the amount of visits one can use for mental health treatment, both inpatient and outpatient. The new law closes that loophole, stating that the limits must be the same. Some interesting facts about the new law:

• Researchers have found biological causes and effective treatments for numerous mental illnesses.
• A number of companies now specialize in managing mental health benefits, making the costs to insurers and employers more affordable. The law allows these companies to continue managing benefits.
• Employers have found that productivity tends to increase after workers are treated for mental illnesses and drug or alcohol dependence. Such treatments can reduce the number of lost work days.
• The stigma of mental illness may have faded as people see members of the armed forces returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious mental problems.
• Parity has proved workable when tried at the state level and in the health insurance program for federal employees, including members of Congress.
• The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the new requirement will increase premiums by an average of about two-tenths of 1 percent. (FYI, this means that my premiums will be raised by approximately six cents. Assuming I’ve done the math correctly, of course–which is a BIG assumption. Hm. Now I’m getting 30 cents. Either way, it’s not enough to consider.)

My concerns are twofold. One is that it doesn’t take effect until 2010. If we can get a bailout done with lightning speed, there’s no reason not to get this on the ball as well, especially since we’ve waited so fucking long for it. My other concern is that insurers will simply put a cap on treatments they haven’t capped before, and then we’ll still be screwed with mental health, with the added bonus of being screwed for physical health.

There is, of course, the argument that an insurance provider is a business and can cover what they want–and if you don’t like it, you can get insurance elsewhere. My first response to that is that it’s simply unfair for a person to have to pay so much more out of pocket because their illness happens to be of a highly experienced nature that, for whatever reason (likely “because we can”), the insurance companies have chosen not to cover. Additionally, since the law only applies to group health insurance provide by employers of 50 or more, many people still simply won’t be accepted for coverage if they have mental health problems, whether they’re willing/able to pay more or not. This argument won’t fly, though, because the sort of people who argue against parity are the people who have never been touched directly by the expense of mental health care and really don’t have the foresight to see that this will benefit them a lot more than it will hurt them.

I recently read an article about women’s health care parity. Apparently women are charged more than men for the same coverage when purchasing private insurance.

In general, insurers say, they charge women more than men of the same age because claims experience shows that women use more health care services. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses.

So what they’re basically saying is that, since women practice preventative care and are statistically more likely to get certain diseases, their coverage can be up to 50% higher. African Americans, for example, are also statistically more likely to get certain illnesses, yet it is illegal to charge more base on race–as it should be. But the same should hold true for women. This is especially true when you take into account that preventative care costs insurance companies less than treating illnesses not caught by preventative care. (Incidentally, this is also why I never have understood why insurance companies won’t cover birth control, but will cover prenatal care and Viagra; and why they won’t cover smoking cessation drugs/classes, but will cover chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, emphysema, etc.; and why they won’t cover nutritional counseling, but they’ll cover a wide variety of illnesses caused by poor nutrition and obesity.) If the argument is money, then shouldn’t they cover the much less expensive preventative care?

Mental Health Parity Resource: NY Times: Bailout Provides More Mental Health Coverage
Women’ Health Care Resource: NY Times: Women Buying Health Policies Pay a Penalty