This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
APA renews call for bipartisan health care reform
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
In response to the recently released Congressional Budget Office estimates regarding the American Health Care Act, the APA renewed its call for a bipartisan solution to health care.
According to the APA, the CBO score confirmed their concerns that the AHCA will negatively affect individuals with mental health and substance use disorders.
“We are deeply troubled that 23 million Americans could lose access to health care,” outgoing APA President Maria A. Oquendo, MD, PhD, said in a press release. “Taking away their coverage is unconscionable.”
The organization reported that the AHCA is threatening to the 1.3 million Americans with serious mental illness and the 2.8 million Americans with substance use disorders who obtained coverage for the first time due to the expansion of Medicaid under current law.
The APA urged the Senate to reject the AHCA and offered the following recommendations to lawmakers:
- Maintain the current level of coverage for mental health and substance use disorders;
- Maintain safeguards in private insurance by prohibiting:
- Coverage denial based on preexisting conditions;
- Lifetime and annual dollar limits on essential health benefits; and
- Discrimination based on health status, including a history of mental health and substance use disorders.
- Efforts to restructure Medicaid must include sufficient funding for mental health and substance use issues and not move the cost to states in a manner that forces them to limit eligibility requirements, provider reimbursement or benefits; and
- Guarantee full implementation and enforcement of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.
“Congress made much progress over the past 3 years, culminating in the passage last year of the bipartisan, bicameral 21st Century Cures Act,” Saul Levin, MD, MPA, CEO and medical director of the APA, said in the release. “This current bill reverses those gains. We stand ready to work with both parties to ensure adequate health care for all Americans.”