The White House argued its case this week that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will improve mental health care access.
Cecilia Muñoz, a White House blogger, said the PPACA ban on medical underwriting will keep health plans from using mental illnesses as a reason to deny applications for coverage or charge people with those conditions higher rates.
An earlier law, the Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act, already requires both individual and group health plans that offer both medical and mental health benefits to offer comparable medical and mental health benefits, and PPACA will expand access to mental health and substance abuse benefits, Muñoz wrote.
Recommended For You
Muñoz did not discuss the PPACA essential health benefits package or how expansion of access to mental health benefits would work.
Muñoz did point out that the new PPACA preventive services package includes depression screening for adults and behavioral assessments for children.
Plans must cover those screenings at no cost to the patient, Muñoz said.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
