Addiction Recovery Basics

This is the first state to force insurance companies to grant parity for addiction treatment.

August 10, 2008 by Eric Helmuth

Capping years of effort by addiction policy advocates and their allies at the statehouse, Massachusetts enacted legislation last week requiring the state’s private health insurers to provide unlimited coverage for medically necessary treatment of substance use disorders and other mental health conditions.

"This historic legislation is both health care expansion and civil rights legislation," said Rep. Ruth Balser, D-Newton, the author and lead sponsor of the legislation. "It will go a long way towards ending stigma by recognizing that addiction is an illness like all other illnesses, and those who suffer from them will receive the treatment they need and deserve," said Balser, who is also a clinical psychologist.

Addiction treatment and recovery advocates, who had been working on parity with Balser and other supportive lawmakers for years, expressed delight at the legislation’s passage. Calling it a "monumental accomplishment," Connie Peters, vice president for substance abuse at Mental Health and Substance Abuse Corporations of Massachusetts (MHSAC), said the new law will "help us further remove the stigma of addiction by requiring it to be treated as the chronic disease that it is." Peters coordinates the Massachusetts Coalition for Addiction Services, an alliance of several professional and grassroots groups that supported the parity legislation.

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