Megan McArdle writes:
Apparently, the administration has issued rules requiring parity for mental health treatment with other illnesses. They'll take effect July 1st. If you want to know why health insurance costs keep marching upward seemingly uncontrolled, this is why: mandating new benefits is always popular, and the government doesn't have to pay for them.
I am very sympathetic to the plight of the mentally ill. Unfortunately, most of the people who will tap the benefits are not severely ill people who need intensive care; they're people who are unhappy. Unhappiness is not a condition for which psychotherapy, or antidepressants, have been shown to be very effective. (Severe clinical depression, yes. But contrary to the belief of people who felt awfully down the time their boyfriend left them, these two conditions are not the same thing.) Since the moderately unhappy and dissatisfied are much more prevalent than those with serious disorders, that's most of what we'll be paying for: someone to listen to complaints
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