Legislative Background
Recent Action on Mental Health Parity
In 1996, Congress passed the Mental Health Parity Act, amending the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Public Health Service Act to establish new Federal standards for mental health coverage offered by group health plans sponsored by employers. The law prohibited such plans from imposing annual and lifetime dollar limits on mental health coverage that are more restrictive than those imposed on medical and surgical coverage. The Mental Health Parity Act included certain limitations, however. It only applied to plans that already offered mental health benefits and exempted employers with 50 or fewer employees. It also specified that…
