Loopholes Leave Gaps in Mandated Coverage for Mental Health

Health plans for state and local workers can opt out of the federal law requiring them to treat mental health like other medical conditions.

One 16-year-old spent 28 days in treatment for substance abuse but was forced to leave once his parents’ insurance coverage ran out. Weeks later, he wound up back in the hospital. His parents are now shelling out thousands of dollars for another program, depleting all the money they had saved for his college tuition. And the family of a dangerously depressed teenager chose to continue hospitalizing their child despite the refusal by their insurance plan, for West Virginia state employees, to cover more than 30 days of hospital care in a year, leaving them with tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills.