Mental Health Parity

NAMI supports mental health parity, or requiring health insurance companies to cover mental illness with the same coverages and limits that they apply to medical and surgical services.

Learn about parity or email a letter to your U.S. Representative to support parity. Are your legislators representing your opinions? See who is voting for it on Capitol Hill.

• 3/8/08: Tell your representatives that mental illness are real illnesses; treatment works -- if you can get it; and there is no justification for unequal insurance coverage for mental illness.

  Equitable coverage of mental illness treatment has been a top legislative priority for NAMI for nearly 20 years. NAMI strongly supports the separate Senate bill (S 558) that passed in September and is now urging quick action to resolve the differences between the bills so that a bill acceptable to all sides and the President can be passed and signed into law this year.

  Congress cannot allow this historic opportunity to enact insurance parity to slip away. Now is the time to come to an agreement that can get through the House, the Senate and be signed by President Bush. Congress must act in 2008!

  Learn more about NAMI's Position on HR 1424.
  

• 10/24/07: State AB423 (Beall) vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.
  See NAMI California's position.
  
  
• 10/17/07: Federal S558, Mental Health Parity Act of 2007. Referred to the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions. See Status.
  
  
• 7/18/07: Federal HR1424 (Wellstone) Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act passes the House. See NAMI's update on federal legislation .
  
  
• Sacramento News & Review Article by Amy Yanello, Mar. 25, 2007: Pushing for Parity
  Local legislators tell insurance companies to treat health care and mental-health care equally
  See article.
  
  
• NAMI Sacramento Testified at Sacramento Congressional Mental Health Parity Hearing
  2/20/07

On February 12, a bipartisan group of senators, led by longtime NAMI allies Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY), introduced legislation to require employers and health plans to equally cover treatment for mental illness. This legislation, known as the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007 (S 558), would expand an existing 1996 federal law and prohibit employers and health plans from imposing durational treatment limits and financial limitations on coverage for mental illness that do not apply to all other medical conditions.

Heidi Sanborn, our NAMI Sacramento Board President, testified at a hearing hosted by Representatives Patrick Kennedy and Doris Matsui on February 20th at the U.C. Davis Mind Institute in support strong federal parity legislation.

• NAMI announcement: NAMI applauds bipartisan Mental Illness Insurance Parity Bill
• NAMI urges action on the bill.
• Support S 558 — contact your legislators.
• See the fact sheet on the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007.