Colorado’s U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and Oregon’s U.S. Senator Ron Wyden are pressing for parity in mental health services for children and older Americans.

The duo introduced legislation to expand access to mental and behavioral health care for Americans on Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, and Medicaid.

“We are experiencing a massive mental health crisis across America, and we urgently need to act to improve access to mental and behavioral health care,” Bennet said in a statement. “My Better Mental Health Care for America Act does exactly that – it helps seniors, families, and kids across America get the mental and behavioral health care they need wherever they need it.”

“Mental health care should be affordable, reliable and accessible for everyone,” added Wyden. “For too long, mental health care has taken a back seat to physical health in the United States. This bill begins to tip the scales by applying mental health parity protections across the health care system, and strengthening penalties on insurance companies that flout the rules. This legislation will help Oregonians and those struggling with their mental health nationwide get the care they need when they need it. I’ll keep fighting to make mental health parity a reality in this country.”

The 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act extended mental and physical health care parity to private and employer-provided plans, but those provisions didn’t apply to plans offered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Bennet and Wyden said that left out 60 million seniors covered by Medicare, as well as many of the 90 million people enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The two senators said their “Better Mental Health Care for Americans Act” addresses that gap.

Aside from imposing parity, the proposal also seeks to do the following: 

• Ensure that Medicare Advantage plans maintain accurate and updated directories of providers so beneficiaries can easily check who is in-network;

• Increase reimbursement rates for Medicare and Medicaid to incentivize mental and behavioral health integration with physical care;

• Establish a demonstration project to increase access to integrated mental and behavioral health care for children in different settings, such as schools;

• Increase oversight of integrated mental and behavioral health care under Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance plans; and,

• Require CMS to work on better aligning payments, measuring access and quality and improving prevention services for mental and behavioral health care.

In a statement, the two U.S. senators said almost one in five American adults suffer from mental illness, one in four older adults reported having anxiety or depression; and, more than four in 10 high school students felt persistently sad or hopeless.

Also, less than half of Medicare beneficiaries who are living with a mental illness receive treatment, they said. About a quarter of Medicare recipients live with a mental illness.

Ray Merenstein, executive director of National Alliance on Mental Illness Colorado, applauded the proposal. 

“We hear every day from individuals and families who struggle to get the help they need, and the Better Mental Health Care for Americans Act will strengthen services in Medicare and Medicaid, helping countless Coloradans and saving lives,” Merenstein said. 

Sandra Fritsch, medical director of the Pediatric Mental Health Institute at the Children’s Hospital Colorado, echoed the sentiment. 

“Since Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a state of emergency for pediatric mental health nearly two years ago, we have continued to see unprecedented numbers of children in a mental health crisis seeking care in our emergency rooms and across our outpatient and inpatient services,” she said. “It is essential that federal lawmakers adopt bold policies that can begin to mend the children’s mental health system here in Colorado and across the country.”