Wednesday, July 2, 2008

North Carolina Increasing Cost of Health Insurance

Mental health parity law goes into effect

With all the fury being expended over the rising cost of health insurance and health care, you would think that politicians would refrain from taking steps to raise the cost of health insurance. Of course, pandering for votes doesn't take a back seat to anything. The latest case in point: North Carolina's mental health parity law, which went into effect on July 1.

The Buckeye Institute came to the following conclusion in a report from a few years ago regarding Ohio's mental health parity law:

Mental health parity legislation in Ohio would likely raise premium costs for employers and employees.

The actual beneficiaries from mental health parity legislation would probably be a small group of high-cost users. According to most studies of who uses mental health care, these users would likely be educated, high-income, middle-aged, white, and female.