Study Backs Equal Coverage for Mental Ills

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 29 — Providing insurance coverage for mental illness equal to that for physical illness does not drive up the cost of mental health care as many insurers feared, a new study of health benefits for federal employees says.

President Bill Clinton ordered such equal coverage for federal workers in 1999, and the changes took effect in 2001. Under the policy, known as parity, insurers were forbidden to charge higher co-payments or impose stricter limits on psychiatric care or treatment for alcohol and drug abuse.

The new study of those changes, being published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, concludes that if mental health care is properly managed, expanding the coverage of it "can improve insurance protection without increasing total costs" beyond those paid by insurers that do not offer parity.