Health insurance may be improving - But not for individuals with mental illness

Objective. To explore the question of how insurance coverage has changed am ong individuals with mental problems compared to the general population in the last two years. Data Sources. HealthCare for Communities, a national survey to track health system changes. Principal Findings. The percentage of uninsured persons in the general popu lation has not changed very much, and more respondents believe that health insurance coverage has improved rather than deteriorated over the years 199 6 to 1998. However, among individuals with probable mental health disorders , more have lost insurance in those two years than have gained it and more report decreases in health benefits. Individuals with worse mental health c onsistently report a deterioration of access to care compared to individual s with better menial health. Conclusions. Substantial activity has taken place in state and federal legi slation to increase the mental health benefits offered by health insurance. Although this activity could have improved health insurance especially for individuals with mental illness, such persons continue to fare significant ly worse than the general population.