Delaware House Bill 164 (Prior Session Legislation)

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Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 7-2)
Status: Introduced on May 30 2013 - 25% progression, died in chamber
Action: 2014-05-29 - Amendment HA 2 - Introduced and Placed With Bill
Text: Latest bill text (Draft #1) [HTML]

Section 1 of this bill requires compliance with the federal mental health parity laws. Section 2 of this bill requires health insurers issuing large group policies to provide a minimum of 30 consecutive days of inpatient care for serious mental illnesses and drug and alcohol dependencies in order to increase the likelihood of long-term success. Carriers only provide for a limited amount of consecutive days in an inpatient facility (many times, 5 consecutive days) before requiring an insured to seek outpatient therapy. Oftentimes, 5 days is not a sufficient amount of time to diagnosis and treat a serious mental illness or to detoxify from an alcohol or drug addiction.

An Act To Amend Title 18 Of The Delaware Code Relating To Insurance Coverage For Mental Illnesses And Drug And Alcohol Dependency.

Rep. Bryon Short [D]	Rep. Helene Keeley [D]	Sen. Brian Bushweller [D]	Rep. Michael Barbieri [D]
Rep. Gerald Brady [D]	Rep. Ruth Briggs King [R]	Rep. Ruth Briggs King [R]	Sen. Bruce Ennis [D]
Sen. Bryan Townsend [D]

Date	Chamber	Action
2014-05-29	House	Amendment HA 2 - Introduced and Placed With Bill
2013-06-18	House	Amendment HA 1 - Introduced and Placed With Bill
2013-05-30	House	Introduced and Assigned to Economic Development/Banking/Insurance/Commerce Committee in House

Type	Source
Summary	http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis147.nsf/2bede841c6272c888025698400433a04/e298fc8eeaf4d66485257b3a0069f3a0?OpenDocument
Text	http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis147.nsf/vwLegislation/HB+164/$file/legis.html?open