S
Shakuhachi
Guest
And that even brings us to healthcare doesn’t it? What do the healthcare reform proposals have to say about mental health?
Between enrollment in exchange plans and those Medicaid plans, the ACA provided a parity guarantee for mental-health and substance abuse services for over 30 million people, many of whom faced the most dire issues on those fronts.
The American Health Care Act would undo that. The AHCA’s provisions to sunset the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and discontinue enhanced funding for able-bodied low-income adults would remove critical mental-health funding for those enrollees. But even for those who remained eligible for Medicaid, the bill would also create per-capita caps on funding, and establish state-optional block grants that would constrain the overall per-person funding per state—which is currently open-ended. The block grants would also cap the number of people who could enroll in a state, and would allow states flexibility to skirt parity rules and create more barriers to mental-health care for enrollees.
www.theatlantic.com
While the health care–reform debate raged over the last eight years, a quiet progressive victory made lives better for millions of people with surprisingly little controversy—the simple idea that mental health should be taken as seriously as physical health. That’s because a broad coalition of advocates ensured that the Affordable Care Act included the concept of “mental health parity”—meaning insurance providers must provide equality in services for mental- and physical-health care.
But now the Trump administration threatens to just as stealthily unravel the modest gains in mental-health equity by shredding the ACA, sinking those millions deeper into silent despair.
www.thenation.com
Between enrollment in exchange plans and those Medicaid plans, the ACA provided a parity guarantee for mental-health and substance abuse services for over 30 million people, many of whom faced the most dire issues on those fronts.
The American Health Care Act would undo that. The AHCA’s provisions to sunset the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and discontinue enhanced funding for able-bodied low-income adults would remove critical mental-health funding for those enrollees. But even for those who remained eligible for Medicaid, the bill would also create per-capita caps on funding, and establish state-optional block grants that would constrain the overall per-person funding per state—which is currently open-ended. The block grants would also cap the number of people who could enroll in a state, and would allow states flexibility to skirt parity rules and create more barriers to mental-health care for enrollees.
How the American Health Care Act Would Worsen the Opioid Crisis
The Republican bill would decrease access to mental-health services for millions, and in the process dismantle the tools used to fight substance abuse.
www.theatlantic.com
While the health care–reform debate raged over the last eight years, a quiet progressive victory made lives better for millions of people with surprisingly little controversy—the simple idea that mental health should be taken as seriously as physical health. That’s because a broad coalition of advocates ensured that the Affordable Care Act included the concept of “mental health parity”—meaning insurance providers must provide equality in services for mental- and physical-health care.
But now the Trump administration threatens to just as stealthily unravel the modest gains in mental-health equity by shredding the ACA, sinking those millions deeper into silent despair.
Trump’s Obamacare Repeal Could Lead to a Mental-Health Crisis
The Affordable Care Act was instrumental in making insurance providers cover mental illness.
www.thenation.com
