PANEL RELEASES MENTAL HEALTH PARITY BILL;
WOULD REQUIRE EQUAL CARE FOR MENTAL ILLNESSES

Measure Would Ensure Care for Variety of Mental Illness, Including Addiction
        
(TRENTON)  -- The Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee today released legislation Assembly members Gordon Johnson, Valerie Vainieri Huttle, Linda Greenstein and Patrick Diegnan sponsored to require health insurers to provide the same levels of coverage for a broad array of mental illnesses - including alcoholism and drug addiction - as they do for treating other diseases.

"Thousands of New Jersey families are impacted by mental illness," said Johnson (D-Bergen).  "It is time that health insurers provide the same level of coverage for individuals with mental illness as patients undergoing any other legitimate medical procedure."

The measure (A-2077) would expand mental health insurance coverage to include non-biologically based mental illnesses including: attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder, Tourette's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, delirium, dementia, bipolar disorder, agoraphobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia, antisocial disorder and paranoia.

New Jersey enacted law requiring health insurers to cover biologically-based mental health in 1999. 

"Health insurers have a responsibility to provide the best medical coverage and assistance available to help people in need," said Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen).  "We must provide a clear path to treatment for the thousands of people who suffer from mental illness."

The bill also would require health insurers and hospitals to broaden coverage to treat substance abuse the same as other diseases by requiring individual, small health benefits plans, and HMO insurers to provide inpatient programs, outpatient care, detoxification and confinement treatment.

"All individuals suffering from mental illness need access to the proper medical care that they desperately need,"  said Greenstein (D-Middlesex/Mercer).  "By requiring insurers to recognize addiction as a mental illness we can encourage more people to get help and take their first steps on the road to recovery."

"We cannot afford to allow insurers continue to discriminate against individuals suffering from drug addiction or alcoholism," said Diegnan (D-Middlesex).  "We are losing valuable time that could be better spent helping to save the lives of the thousands of New Jerseyans who are suffering from addiction."

The measure was released 7-0 with four abstentions.  It now heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for further consideration. 

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