Scope
The MHPA applies to group health plans for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 1998. The original sunset provision (providing that the parity requirements would not apply to benefits for services furnished on or after September 30, 2001) was extended six times. The current extension runs through December 31, 2007. Insurers promptly were able to "circumvent" the consumer protections arguably intended in the legislation by imposing maximum numbers of provider visits and/or caps on the number of days an insurer would cover for inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations. In essence, the law had little or no effect on mental health coverage by group insurance plans. The rider on TARP prohibits all group health plans that offer mental health coverage from imposing any greater limit on co-pays, co-insurance, numbers of visits, and/or number of days covered for hospital stays due to mental health conditions. The rider legislation was the culmination of a long campaign fought by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and his successors to enact mental health parity at the federal level. The new law's requirements will be phased in over several years. Still unsure is whether non-"biologically-based" mental illnesses such as PTSD and eating disorders are mandated to be covered by the new law.
Read more about this topic: Mental Health Parity Act
Famous quotes containing the word scope:
“As the creative adult needs to toy with ideas, the child, to form his ideas, needs toys—and plenty of leisure and scope to play with them as he likes, and not just the way adults think proper. This is why he must be given this freedom for his play to be successful and truly serve him well.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“Happy is that mother whose ability to help her children continues on from babyhood and manhood into maturity. Blessed is the son who need not leave his mother at the threshold of the world’s activities, but may always and everywhere have her blessing and her help. Thrice blessed are the son and the mother between whom there exists an association not only physical and affectional, but spiritual and intellectual, and broad and wise as is the scope of each being.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)
“Each man must have his “I;” it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)