The Beginning Of The End Of Parity

You may have missed the announcement, since there has been so much coverage of immigration policy in the past week; but on Tuesday, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta announced new and final rules for health insurance for small businesses and self-employed individuals. While there are many elements to the new rules, one key issue is that health plans will not be required to cover the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act-mandated (PPACA) essential health benefits, which includes ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and addiction treatment services, prescription drugs, rehabilitative and habilitative services . . .