1) The Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 was signed into law by President Clinton as a means of treating mental illness in the same fashion as all other illnesses.
For a more detailed description of the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996, see Haneefa T.
The amendments to the
Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 introduced by Representative Roukema would avoid this problem with the Substance Abuse Treatment Parity Act.
31) Although the Senate unanimously approved the Wellstone Amendment, debates in the House of Representatives regarding the excessive costs of mental health parity resulted in the passage of the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 ("MHPA"), a heavily compromised version of the originally proposed Wellstone Amendment.
128) Compare Mental Health Parity Act of 1996, 29 U.
The old
Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 required large and midsize group health plans that cover mental health care to offer the same annual and lifetime maximums for mental health care that they offer for other types of medical care.
543), which expands on the
Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 and resembles guidelines that apply to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
The impetus behind the federal effort is the September 2001 expiration of the
Mental Health Parity Act of 1996.
