Fifty years after President John F. Kennedy’s Community Mental Health Act sought governmental regulation of health insurance providers to ensure equal care for mental health patients, The Affordable Care Act may see to it that Kennedy’s vision finally comes to fruition. Federal regulations of the Affordable Care Act will change the way health insurance companies bill patients, requiring them to cover care for mental health patients as they do for patients with physical ailments. With the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and the Affordable Care Act of 2010, mental health patients, as well as those struggling with addiction, may no longer have to worry that they could be denied care. "Mental health has become too big to ignore," said Psychiatrist-in-Chief Paul Summergrad, MD at Tufts MC, in a USA Today story. "These are problems that are just too common."
