Substance use treatment centers worry new health care plan will cut coverage

Mental health leaders say cuts would add more burden on patients, society

House Speaker Paul Ryan told the public after Thursday's delay, there will be a vote on the health care bill Friday. With the news, worry mounted Thursday inside a local addiction center, since pieces of the plan could affect coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment.

Local mental health leaders said the changes would add more burden on both patients and society.

Nonprofit substance use treatment providers continue to feel a general uneasiness about the many changes that have been and still could happen to the bill. They don't know what to expect Friday, but the CEO of San Antonio addiction center Alpha Home, Angela White, knows what she wants in that bill.

"We need to make sure that mental health care and substance use provision (are) protected because both are diseases," she said.

A major request from some conservatives is to scrap the Affordable Care Act's "essential health care benefits," which mandate all insurance plans cover "essential" items, including mental health and substance use disorder services. Free-market conservatives said these regulations raise premiums and are unfair to patients who are paying for care they don't need.

White said eliminating substance use treatment from coverage adds weight elsewhere.

"If you don't fund substance use, you're going to have increased jail costs, CPS costs," White said.

Her biggest fear with the proposed American Health Care Act is the effect on Medicaid benefits. Up to 47 women can live at Alpha Home at a time while receiving treatment, and a lot of them can afford it only because of Medicaid.

The proposed plan said Medicaid patients could eventually end up with a limited allotment per patient.

"Limited to per person will only receive however much money that is, and then that's it, so would you treat somebody with any other disease that way? If it wasn't mental health or it wasn't substance use disorder? I don't think so," White said.

While the plan could also roll back the expansion of Medicaid, that does not affect Texas as much since the state opted out of the expansion. However, addiction centers in other states that opted for Medicaid expansion will be severely affected.

"I'm not saying Medicaid is absolutely the perfect answer, but our concern is that we need to make sure people suffering from these diseases still remain and are able to get help," White said.

The vote on Capitol Hill is expected to happen Friday, even though leadership is still trying to secure the votes. 

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About the Author:

Courtney Friedman anchors KSAT’s weekend evening shows and reports during the week. Her ongoing Loving in Fear series confronts Bexar County’s domestic violence epidemic. She joined KSAT in 2014 and is proud to call the SA and South Texas community home. She came to San Antonio from KYTX CBS 19 in Tyler, where she also anchored & reported.