Study: Mental health access lags, despite coverage gains

A study released last week found that while more people overall are getting mental health care since the passage of the ACA, it’s still harder to do if you are not white (Source; “Factors Beyond Coverage Limit Mental Health Care Access,” Kaiser Health News, June 6, 2016).

Researchers analyzed National Survey on Drug Use and Health data from 2005 to 2014 and predicted how many people were likely to face “serious psychological distress” — a severe mental health issue that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates affects about 3.3 percent of non-institutionalized Americans. They treated that as a proxy to evaluate how people with mental illness access care generally. The study is expected to be released in the journal Health Affairs.

Whites were still the only racial group in which a majority of people with severe psychological distress get treatment. They were also the only group whose access to mental health services grew by a statistically significant amount, from near 50 percent to about 55 percent, after the ACA was implemented.

Hispanics and Asians are now more likely to find care than they used to be. But the growth wasn’t significantly more than recent trends predating the ACA would have suggested — implying the health law didn’t really make a difference, the authors argue. Blacks are no more likely to get mental health treatment than they used to be. And in all three of those groups, more than half of people facing severe mental illness still don’t get treatment.