Health insurance: discriminatory practices: mental health.

Existing federal law generally requires a health insurance issuer that offers group or individual health insurance coverage that provides both medical and surgical benefits and mental health or substance use disorder benefits to establish parity in the terms and conditions applicable to medical and mental health benefits, as specified. Existing state law subjects nongrandfathered individual and small group health insurance policies that provide coverage for essential health benefits to those provisions of federal law governing mental health parity. Existing law requires every policy of disability insurance that covers hospital, medical, or surgical expenses in this state to provide coverage for the diagnosis and medically necessary treatment of severe mental illnesses of a person of any age, and of serious emotional disturbances of a child, as specified. This bill would require large group, individual, and small group health insurance policies to provide all covered mental health and substance use disorder benefits in compliance with those provisions of federal law governing mental health parity.