Senate Finance Committee releases report on mental health care in America

The Senate Finance Committee today released a report highlighting shortfalls in the nation’s mental health care system. The committee has held a series of hearings on the issue and last year solicited input from stakeholders, including the AHA, on how to address various barriers facing individuals with coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Affordable Care Act marketplaces and group health plans.

“This report marks the Finance Committee’s next step in the bipartisan effort to understand the behavioral health care crisis in the U.S. and, further, to craft a legislative package, which the Committee intends to consider this summer,” Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., writes in the report. “As I see it, the Committee’s lodestar must be this: every American is able to access the mental health and substance use disorder care they and their loved ones need when they need it.”