News from the Senate Majority
Alaska State Legislature

Wendy Lindskoog, Senate Majority Press Secretary
State Capitol
Juneau, AK 99801-1182
Phone: 907/465-4582
http://www.akrepublicans.org
Broadcast Actualities: 800/478-6540

Legislature Advocates Equality in Mental Health Insurance Coverage

For Immediate Release: April 24, 1998 Contact: Senator Gary Wilken at (907) 465-3709.

Juneau – The House unanimously passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 14 to form a task force charged with examining the issue of mental health parity in health insurance policies. The task force will study approaches taken by other states and will make recommendations to the Legislature on how to increase parity between mental and physical illnesses.

Senator Gary Wilken (R-Fairbanks), Chairman of the Health, Education and Social Services Committee that sponsored the measure, said the Mental Health Task Force will be comprised of 11 members. It will be funded through the Mental Health Trust which has allocated $50,000 to the task force and will not require any state general funds.

"Despite increased recognition that mental illness is a brain disorder treatable like any other illness, we find that 9 out of 10 insurance policies nationwide treat mental illnesses differently than physical illnesses," Wilken said. "This results in limited or no insurance coverage for mental illnesses. I’d like to investigate this discrimination by defining and quantifying the problems at hand."

"Equalizing the availability to mental health benefits has many plus sides. It will allow more people to overcome their illnesses and enter the working world; It will have little negative impact on the private sector; and by reducing reliance on Medicaid and other public welfare programs, it will result in less government spending" Wilken said.

The federal government took an important first step in establishing parity within insurance coverage between Mental and Physical illness when it passed the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996. It equalized annual limits and lifetime limits between physical and mental health for most health insurance policies. At a more grassroots level, many states have bolstered the federal legislation by passing state parity laws. Fifteen states have passed mental health parity laws and twenty-five more, including Alaska, are considering legislation.

# # #