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The Business Council of New York State opposes S.3101 (Biaggi) / A.1619 (Rozic), as it imposes an open-ended insurance coverage mandate on health insurance plans in New York State, with no relation to findings, adopted into New York State policy that Comprehensive Care Centers for Eating Disorders are the proper avenue of care for those who suffer eating disorders. Without benefiting patients, this bill increases costs on taxpayers who fund the employer share for public employee health benefits; and will increase costs for individuals and especially small businesses in New York.
Currently, New York requires health plans to cover all eating disorders contained in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) at Comprehensive Care Centers for Eating Disorders. This bill supplants the best practices of Comprehensive Care Centers for Eating Disorders with a hodge-podge of incomplete treatments, which are simply not in the best interest of the patient’s progress. The Legislature should not be endorsing policies that lead patients away from effective diagnosis, treatment, coordination and comprehensive management of an individualized plan of care as currently provided by Comprehensive Care Centers for Eating Disorders.
Further, this is one of seventy seven mandates on private insurance already introduced in this Legislative session. These mandates drive up costs for all employer-sponsored plans, and those in the small group, community-rated market are hit the hardest.
We respectfully request that the Legislature, when weighing the benefits of this bill and the other mandate bills against the costs, consider the fact that the cost of this bill and other state mandates on private insurance disproportionately fall on individuals buying insurance on the Exchange and on New York’s smallest businesses, ever more eroding their affordable health care options. These mandates are imposed only on fully-insured health policies, purchased by individuals on the exchange or who receive it through a small or medium-sized business. Larger companies most often self-insure and are governed by the Federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and are not subject to these mandates. Today, roughly 50 percent of the commercial market in New York is covered under a self-insured plan.
This bill is bad policy for patients and will increase health coverage costs for those who can least afford it. For these reasons, The Business Council opposes S.3101 (Biaggi) / A.1619 (Rozic).