I turned on the radio just as it began and I wasn't paying much attention until I realized the topic.

Yes, it did.

A bit more info.

I was all excited and optimistic until I read this part:

The insurance industry is now a strong supporter of the parity legislation.

So what's the catch? My suspicion is that it's this:

The legislation does not mandate that group health plans cover mental health or addiction treatment, only that when plans do so, the coverage must be equitable to other medical coverage.

So the insurers are just going to stop offering coverage for MH and addiction altogether, right?

I haven't heard all that much about it, but my gut feeling is: Because insurance coverage for mental health has been so limited in the US, it's been fairly easy for a lot of therapists to not take insurance. The insurance companies might be backing the parity bill because it's a way of creating more demand for therapists to sign up for insurance panels (thus getting their hooks into therapists as well as MDs....)

But that's really just a guess. In general, I think parity is a good thing, especially for extensive and emergency mental health issues. Right now, though, it seems a little unclear (at least to everyone I've talked to) as to how the legislation is going to affect more "run of the mill" mental health treatment.

Sure hope it turns out to be a good thing. Meantime, I think I'm just going to stand over here and be skeptical.

I also suspect it's going to further enshrine the DSM-IV or -V, a lot of the funding for which comes from big pharma. I think the parity bill will be a HUGE boon for psych drugs (because now they'll need to be covered by insurance in a lot of instances), and the people making psych drugs are doing a LOT of work lately to convince everyone everywhere that they need to be on psych drugs.

Are insurance companies and big pharma in bed together? I kind of can't imagine that they're not, but I don't know where/how that overlap would be.

My interest in this is based in disability insurance limits. Many private disability plans can limit coverage to 2 years if the disability is in any way connected to a mental health issue.