Tucked in remarks the president made Tuesday on the opioid epidemic was his announcement of a new task force on mental health parity — aimed at ensuring that people with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems don’t face discrimination in the health care system.
Despite a landmark 2008 law intended to do just that, enforcement has been paltry, and advocates say discrimination has continued.
“The goal of the task force is to essentially develop a set of tools, guidelines, mechanisms so that it’s actually enforced, that the concept is not just a phrase — an empty phrase,” President Obama said during a panel discussion at the National Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta, Georgia. “We’ve got to let the insurance carriers know that we’re serious about this.”
[For more of this story, written by Jenny Gold, go to http://khn.org/news/presidents...tal-health-coverage/]
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