乔·拜登总统的政府计划试图迫使私营保险公司为以下人群提供同样的保险心理健康根据白宫的说法，他们为身体健康服务所做的服务，改善了美国医疗保健系统中一个众所周知的漏洞。
新政策是拜登推动改善的更广泛努力的一部分心理卫生保健这是他在一次国情咨文演讲中提出的一个问题。拜登周二下午宣布的拟议规则将试图强制私营保险公司遵守2008年的一项法律，该法律已经要求保险公司在精神健康和身体健康方面保持平等，但几乎从未得到遵守。
拜登的国内政策顾问尼拉·坦登(Neera Tanden)在最近的一次电话中告诉记者，“通过这项法律是为了确保我们的医疗保健系统能够像对待身体护理一样对待精神健康护理。”。"保险不会让你为去看心理健康服务提供者支付比看医生更多的费用。"
“但在那之后的几年里，我们已经了解到保险公司在逃避法律的授权，”她补充道。“保险公司很难获得网络内的精神健康保险，因此消费者往往被迫以高得多的费用寻求网络外的护理，并自掏腰包。或者——这也是一个真正的挑战——他们完全推迟了治疗。”
根据白宫高级官员的说法，新规定将试图通过建立更多的报告标准来打击违反该法的行为，并试图让更多的精神健康专业人士提供网络内护理，以及减少获得精神健康保险资格的“繁文缛节”。
在过去几年对当前系统的工作方式进行监控后，一名官员称其“令人难以置信地失望”，并且基本上不符合2008年的法律。例如，分析表明，如果人们患有糖尿病，他们可以获得营养咨询，但如果他们患有饮食失调，则不能。
一名官员表示，这项提议的政策将“更加有力地说明医疗计划必须如何实际衡量生育能力。”
虽然官员们说“在不久的将来的某个时候”，但具体的实施时间还不清楚。该政策在实施前将经历60天的公众意见征询期。该规则的有效性将受到心理健康倡导者的密切关注。
周二下午，拜登在白宫东厅谈到了新规定，并表示他的计划将“找出(保险公司)提供的精神卫生保健的差距。”
保险公司需要收集数据，弄清楚是什么原因使得在目前的体系下将精神健康纳入保险范围如此困难。这包括网络内有多少心理健康提供者，保险公司是否向他们支付足够的薪酬来激励他们加入网络，加入他们的网络有多难，以及他们要求患者证明他们需要心理健康护理才能获得保险。
“我不知道折断你的手臂和精神崩溃之间有什么区别，”拜登说。“是健康。没有区别。是健康。”
他哀叹道，“看一次治疗师可能要花200美元甚至更多——如果你每周都有一次治疗，那么一个月就是800美元，而这通常是病人所需要的。”
“在我看来，我们有道义上的义务相互支持，”拜登说，“伸出援手，向处于悲伤、压力、创伤和绝望中的邻居伸出援手，向他们伸出援手或只是倾听，在我们需要帮助时有勇气请求帮助——这很难。”
周二的声明遵循了总统在2022年3月的国情咨文中做出的承诺。
“让我们为所有美国人提供他们需要的心理健康服务，”拜登当时说。“他们可以向更多的人寻求帮助，身体和精神健康护理完全平等。”
大约在同一时间，拜登政府开始将总统于2022年6月签署的两党《更安全社区法案》中近17亿美元的精神卫生资金转移到全国各地的学校和社区。其中包括2.4亿美元用于提高学龄儿童心理健康支持意识的项目，8，000万美元用于儿童心理健康服务，6，000万美元用于培训儿科医生。此外，该法律有1 . 5亿美元用于帮助实施988自杀和危机生命线，这是一条热线，供人们在需要时联系。
这是拜登改善国家精神卫生保健的主要推动措施的一部分，包括3亿美元的拨款，重点是精神卫生服务，这是他2022财年预算的一部分。
五月，美国卫生局局长维维克·默西医生，发布了一条建议关于社交媒体的使用对青少年心理健康的影响——这也是拜登在国情咨文演讲中强调的一个问题。
White House pushes private insurance companies to cover mental health care
President Joe Biden's administration plans to try to force private insurance companies to offer the same coverage formental healthservices as they do for physical health services, improving upon a well-known hole in America's health care system, according to the White House.
The new policy is part of a broader push by Biden to improvemental health carein the United States -- an issue he raised during one of his State of the Union speeches. The proposed rule, which Biden announced on Tuesday afternoon, will attempt to enforce compliance from private insurers with a 2008 law that already requires equality between the way insurance companies cover mental health and physical health -- but is hardly ever adhered to.
"That law was passed to ensure that mental health care was treated by our health care system, like physical care," Biden's domestic policy adviser, Neera Tanden, told reporters during a recent telephone call. "Insurance couldn't make you pay more for a visit to a mental health provider than your physician."
"But in the years since, we've learned that insurers are evading the mandate of law," she added. "Insurers make it difficult to access mental health coverage in-network, and then consumers are often forced to seek care out-of-network at significantly higher cost and pay out of pocket. Or -- and this is this is also a real challenge -- they defer care altogether."
The new rule will attempt to crack down on violations of this law by creating more reporting standards and also try to get more mental health professionals to offer in-network care as well as reduce the "red tape" to qualify for mental health coverage, according to senior White House officials.
After monitoring the way the current system works for the past few years, one official called it "incredibly disappointing" and largely not compliant with the 2008 law. Analyses showed that people can access nutritional counseling if they have diabetes, for example, but not if they have eating disorders.
The proposed policy, an official said, will "put a lot more teeth around how health plans have to actually measure parity."
Exactly when it will be enacted was unclear, though officials said "sometime in the near future." The policy will undergo a 60-day public comment period before implementation. The effectiveness of the rule will be under the watchful eyes of mental health advocates.
On Tuesday afternoon, Biden spoke about the new rule from the White House's East Room and said that his plan would “identify the gaps in the mental health care that [insurers] provide.”
Insurers would need to collect data on what makes it so difficult to get mental health covered under the current system. That includes how many mental health providers are available in-network, whether insurers are paying them enough to incentivize being in-network, how hard it is to join their network and how much they require patients to prove that they need mental health care in order to get it covered.
"I don't know what the difference between breaking your arm and having a mental breakdown is," Biden said. "It's health. There's no distinction. It's health."
And he lamented the fact that "seeing a therapist can cost 200 bucks a visit or more -- that's $800 a month if you have a session every week, which is often what patients need."
“We have a moral obligation, in my view, to be there for each other," Biden said, "to reach out, reach to our neighbors in grief and stress and trauma and despair, reach out to them to offer help or just a listening ear, to have the courage to ask for help when we need it -- and it's hard."
Tuesday’s announcement follows through on a pledge the president made during his State of the Union address in March 2022.
"Let's get all Americans the mental health services they need," Biden said at the time. "More people they can turn to for help, and full parity between physical and mental health care."
Around the same time, the Biden administration began to move nearly $1.7 billion of mental health funding from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which the president signed in June 2022, to schools and communities across the country. That included $240 million for programs increasing awareness of mental health support for school-aged kids, $80 million for grants for children's mental health services and $60 million to train pediatric providers. In addition, that law had $150 million to help implementthe 988 suicide and crisis lifeline, a hotline for people to contact when they're in need.
It was all part of a major push by Biden to improve the nation's mental health care, including $300 million in grants focused on mental health services that were part of his fiscal year 2022 budget.
In May, the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy,issued an advisoryabout the impact of social media usage on teenagers' mental health -- an issue Biden also highlighted in his State of the Union speech.
