Legal Action Center
01/31/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/31/2025 14:28
ERIC Lawsuit Threatens Access to Critical Substance Use and Mental Health Treatment Amid Dual Crises
LAC, along with other leading health policy organizations, expresses deep concern about the recent lawsuit filed by the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) challenging the revised federal regulations implementing the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Parity Act).
Filed on January 17, 2025, this lawsuit threatens to undermine critical protections for millions of individuals who rely on private health insurance for access to substance use disorder (SUD) and mental health (MH) care. ERIC claims to represent the interests of large employers that cover millions of people in this country, yet their case challenging the Departments of Labor, Health & Human Services, and Treasury over their September 2024 final Parity Act regulations aims ultimately to restrict access to lifesaving care amid ongoing epidemics of fatal overdose and suicide.
The Parity Act was designed to ensure that health insurance plans cover SUD and MH benefits on equal terms with other medical and surgical benefits. ERIC's argument that employers should not be required to provide "meaningful" SUD/MH benefits contradicts the very essence of the Parity Act. By challenging the requirement to cover core treatments, such as counseling and medications for opioid use disorder, and claiming that they should have no obligation to ensure there is no "material difference in access to SUD/MH services," ERIC is undermining efforts to enforce the law's requirement that people with substance use and mental disorders are entitled to receive the same level of care they need to get and stay well as people with any other medical condition.
LAC Sr. Health Policy Attorney Deborah Steinberg states, "It is unacceptable, both legally and morally, for health plans to not cover SUD/MH services on par with other medical care-plain and simple. The updated Parity Act regulations finalized by the Departments of Labor, Health & Human Services, and the Treasury last fall were a significant step in the right direction of rooting out discriminatory insurance practices and holding insurers accountable-we cannot allow this critical progress to be reversed."
###
Media Contact:
Arianne Keegan
Director of Communications, Legal Action Center
communications@lac.org
(212) 243-1313
###