Georgia’s Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King is fining health insurance companies over $20 million for violating the state’s mental health parity laws, but an advocacy group says more can be done.
“Parity” means physical and mental conditions should be treated in the same way. So, if a person has a broken leg or becomes suicidal, both concerns would be addressed in an emergency room.
Jeff Breedlove with the Georgia Council for Recovery says the fines are a drop in the bucket for big insurance companies, and lawmakers need to pass House Bill 612, creating a panel to review complaints.
“We cannot let Georgia get into a pattern where big insurance executives and their cronies decide it’s more affordable financially for big insurance to simply pay a state a fine every year,” Breedlove said. “And if that becomes a pattern, that will have to be dealt with because a $2,000 fine and a $5,000 fine to big insurance, that’s like charging me a quarter for a fine.”
King’s Aug. 15, 2023, report found more than 6,000 violations by 22 health insurers of the state’s mental health parity law that passed in 2022. The fined companies were not named in the press release.
“I was there when Georgia’s Mental Health Parity Act was signed into law in 2022,” King said. Three years later, our initial examinations show that insurers have turned a blind eye to the rules and continue to deprive Georgians of the essential behavioral health resources they deserve.”
The action that King took is the very validation of why House Bill 612 must pass the General Assembly and must be signed into law so that we can get to work on more effective oversight for the Parity Act itself, Breedlove said.
“Because big insurance is making a laughing stock of this historic effort of the General Assembly and that can’t be tolerated,” he said.
Consumers who believe they are the victim of a mental health parity violation may file a complaint online or call 1-800-656-2298.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
