U.S. Congressman Donald Norcross (NJ-01) released the following statement regarding his Parity Enforcement Act, which passed the House today as part of the Mental Heal Matters Act.

“The law says health insurance companies need to provide parity in mental health coverage, but the reality is that many insurers don’t,” said Congressman Norcross. “My Parity Enforcement Act gives the Department of Labor teeth to enforce the law, which will help keep health plans honest and get patients the services they need. Mental health takes many forms, but no one can tell me that your state of mind is less important than the rest of your bodily health.”

“Every day, we have patients who lack access to mental health services because insurers fail to comply with the federal mental health parity law,” said AMA President Jack Resneck Jr., MD. “The Labor Department is ideally situated to help make sure that employee-sponsored health plans respond to the law and patient needs. Mental health services are needed more than ever to deal with the combination of Covid and the continued drug overdose epidemic, and we appreciate that Rep. Norcross has offered a solution. We will support him as he works to pass this life-saving legislation.”

Background

In 2008, Congress began requiring mental health parity via the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which required insurance plans to provide the same level of coverage for mental health and substance use disorders that they provide for physical health conditions. The problem is that the law cannot be adequately enforced for the millions of employees that receive health insurance through their employer.

Currently, the Department of Labor (DOL) is only able to require employers to reimburse their workers after there are parity violations in their self-funded insurance plans. However, DOL cannot act against the insurance company that is offering the insurance plan. That leaves DOL with no front-end enforcement mechanism to ensure there’s compliance with existing mental health and substance-use parity requirements.

The Parity Enforcement Act gives the U.S. Department of Labor an enforcement mechanism to hold health insurers and plan sponsors accountable for offering health plans that violate the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

The legislative language of the Parity Enforcement Act was added to a larger mental health care package – the Mental Health Matters Act (H.R. 7780). That larger package passed the House on September 28, 2022, delivering to the DOL the enforcement authority it needs to hold health insurance companies accountable.