How Will the Election Affect Treatment for Addiction?
Here's a blog from a guest blogger, Ian McLoone, who is a student in the Integrated Behavioral Health Master's program at the University of Minnesota, as well as a Graduate Research Assistant at the new MN Center for Mental Health, which is focused on treatment for people with co-occurring mental and addictive disorders. Welcome Ian!
MW
P.S. Anyone else want to volunteer? I'm open to blog submissions.
MW
P.S. Anyone else want to volunteer? I'm open to blog submissions.
Why the Election Results Are Good News for Addicts and the People Who Treat Them
As Tuesday’s election results trickled in, addiction and mental health professionals throughout the country breathed a collective sigh of relief. President Obama’s re-election means that the Affordable Care Act - affectionately termed, “Obamacare” – is safe from the Romney/Ryan campaign promise of “total repeal” of the law (1). This means that President Obama will have the opportunity to oversee the implementation of his signature first-term accomplishment. What’s more, addiction research will see, at minimum, modest funding increases and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will avoid the devastating cuts outlined in the Romney/Ryan 2013 budget proposal.
The ACA increases patient access to behavioral health services in several ways. By expanding Medicaid coverage to those at 138% of the federal poverty level, as well as the creation of state-run insurance exchanges, as many as 30 million new people will have access to health insurance (2). Health insurance providers will also be subject to several new provisions which are meant to improve the quality of the care they receive. For example, preventative care and interventions will be emphasized, and in many cases fully covered. The ACA has already awarded upwards of 100 million dollars for the implementation of an evidence-based prevention measure known as SBIRT – Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (3). Prevention efforts can improve outcomes for all people, but those with mental illness and substance use disorders are disproportionately affected with other health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease and stroke (4). This, in addition to guaranteed coverage for patients with preexisting conditions, more coverage for prescription medications, and the carrying-forward of the 2009 “parity” law (which mandates that insurance companies cover treatment for mental health like they would any other condition), means those with addiction or mental illness, and those who treat them, will no longer need to question whether or not these services will be available in the years to come.
Mitt Romney, and his running mate, Paul Ryan, ran on a platform of significant cuts in government spending (“non-defense discretionary spending”), exemplified in Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget proposal. In addition to eliminating the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, their plan included provisions which would have resulted in 14 million more people losing their Medicaid insurance over the next 10 years – an estimated 31 million people, in total (5). While many have criticized Paul Ryan for the lack of specifics within his budget plan, the White House estimates of the impact on NIH-funded grants are sobering: 1,600 fewer grants in 2014 and 16,000 fewer over the next 10 years (6).
While we cannot yet say for certain exactly what the impacts of the ACA will be, we can expect some significant improvements in behavioral health coverage for all Americans. Expanded coverage means more patients seeing doctors, more clients with access to therapists and counselors, and more money to pay for drug and alcohol abuse treatments. Certain states have indicated an interest in “opting-out” of the Medicaid expansions, and their right to do so was recently upheld by the Supreme Court. Voters in these states will have to hold their lawmakers responsible for ensuring that they have the same access to healthcare that the rest of the country does. In the meantime, President Obama has an opportunity to do even more for the behavioral health community over the next four years. It will be important to remind him that we expect investments in addiction and mental health research. He has the chance to encourage innovations that could change the way we see addiction and its treatment throughout the 21st century.
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/romney-obamacare-repeal_n_1872667.html
2. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43472-07-24-2012-CoverageEstimates.pdf
3. http://mentalhealthcarereform.org/affordable-care-act-prevention-grants-will-support-sbirt-tobacco-cessation/, http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/1207254120.aspx
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