Behavioral Health Parity Gap Persists In 43 States

Across the four largest commercial health insurers—Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare—covered members in 43 states during 2025 continued to face a mental health parity gap, according to a recent report. Despite the goals of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (Parity Act), in 70% of counties, members faced greater difficulty accessing in-network behavioral health care than medical/surgical care.

The Parity Act requires health insurers to cover behavioral health benefits with no more restrictive quantitative or nonquantitative limits than those applied to medical and surgical services. These include financial requirements . . .