Resources

The new health care reform legislation will provide significant new options for people with mental illnesses to gain coverage.  The legislation creates a way for lower-income and other uninsured individuals to purchase health insurance, improves Medicaid and other public programs, and makes a number of changes to how the health care system operates.  Some provisions in the legislation might prove problematic for people with serious mental illnesses, and exactly how the new law will be implemented will depend on regulations and guidance from federal agencies. Overall, however, this new federal law should have an extremely positive effect for people with mental illnesses. This paper examines the changes and improvements made by health care reform legislation to the operation of the insurance market through which most Americans obtain health care coverage.