"Until now, people with mental illness and substance disorders have faced stingy annual and lifetime caps on coverage, higher deductibles or simply no coverage at all. This was supposed to be fixed in part by the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which mandated that psychiatric illness be covered just the same as other medical illnesses. But the law applied only to larger employers (50 or more workers) that offered a health plan with benefits for mental health and substance abuse. Since it did not mandate universal psychiatric benefits, it had a limited effect on the disparity between the treatment of psychiatric and nonpsychiatric medical diseases. Now comes the Affordable Care Act combining parity with the individual mandate for health insurance."

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