A Look at Rising Mental Health Insurance Costs

The news media have recently focused a great deal of attention on insurance coverage for treatment of mental disorders. Reports of unusually large increases in expenditures for mental health care under private insurance plans have appeared in major newspapers and trade publications.  These reports have pointed to mental disorders, defined to include psychiatric and substance abuse diagnoses, as disproportionate contributors to rising health insurance premiums. Reports from benefits consulting firms such as A. Foster Higgins have cited increases of between 18 and 27 percent Curing 1987–1989. These data form the basis of proposals to devote special attention to mental health care use via managed care arrangements and to place new limits on insurance coverage for treatment of mental disorders. (Summer 1991)