By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – A new lawsuit by a trade group for employers seeks to void a Biden administration-backed federal rule intended to help ensure that the estimated 175 million Americans with private health insurance have access to affordable mental health services.
The “parity” rule, which became final in September, was aimed at ensuring that group health plans provide access to benefits for mental health and substance abuse disorders on a par with benefits for other medical conditions and surgery.
But in Friday’s lawsuit, the ERISA Industry Committee said the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury lacked authority to adopt the rule, including a requirement that plans covering mental health and substance abuse disorders provide “meaningful benefits.”
The group, whose members are generally companies with more than 10,000 employees, said this “benefits mandate” was arbitrary and capricious, and curbs employers’ ability to provide affordable coverage that suits their employees’ needs.
It also said the mandate could lead some plan sponsors to decide not to cover mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders at all.
“Plaintiff wholeheartedly endorses mental health/substance abuse disorder parity goals, but the rule is a textbook example of regulatory overreach that undermines those goals by undercutting access to high-quality, affordable care,” the complaint said.
The government agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
President-elect Donald Trump, who begins his second White House term on Jan. 20, favors less government regulation than incumbent Joe Biden, and it is unclear whether the Trump administration might try to change or eliminate the parity rule.
While the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act was supposed to ensure access to mental health care, the Biden administration said more than half of U.S. adults and nearly 70% of children with mental illness lacked access.
The cost of health care in the United States has come under intense criticism, with fresh attention drawn to the issue after last month’s fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive on a New York City street.
Eugene Scalia, a lawyer for the trade group, said in a statement that government agencies “lost sight of what’s best for a workable mental health care system, and of the constraints on their authority under the Constitution and the laws they purported to implement.”
The Labor Department regulates company-sponsored health plans under the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA.
The case is ERISA Industry Committee v U.S. Department of Health and Human Services et al., U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, No. 25-00136.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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