Political Quotes

“For years, leaders in mental health and addiction have been sounding the alarm that despite the best intentions, our Nation's mental health parity laws are not meeting the needs and expectations of patients. Existing mental health parity laws were supposed to ensure that patients access mental health benefits with the same ease as medical benefits under their insurance. Unfortunately, we know that patients and their families are continuing to struggle with barriers to needed treatment that should be prohibited under existing law. The 2022 mental health parity report to Congress from the U.S. Department of Labor, HHS, and Treasury found that health plans and insurers are failing to comply with our Federal parity laws at an alarming rate, meaning that plans are illegally denying claims for treatment associated with mental or behavioral health conditions at a time when substance use disorder, depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions are rising rapidly, especially for children. The legislation we are considering today would implement recommendations to fix this. The Mental Health Matters Act includes my legislation, the Strengthening Behavioral Health Benefits Act, which would bolster the ability of the Department of Labor to effectively enforce the mental health parity laws and provide resources to the Department of Labor to help bring plans into compliance. The goal here is compliance, not retribution.…”