A lot more expensive, because under this law if your health insurance plan covers legitimate mental health problems such as bipolar disorder it must also cover things like alcoholism and drug addiction.

Because drinking too much beer or shooting up heroin aren’t poor choices people make, they’re diseases.  And how long until we’re defining obesity as just another addiction/disease treatment for which (health club memberships!) insurance companies must provide coverage?

Perhaps the worst thing about this legislation is that people who aren’t alcoholics or drug users can’t opt out of this coverage..  It’s mandated if your plan covers other types of mental diseases, which means you’ll be paying for it whether you need the coverage or not.  Forget that this sort of coverage is already available as an option on many primary and supplemental health insurance plans, our political leaders in the House have decided that we must have this coverage (and pay for it!) whether we want it or not.

For a group of people who spend a good amount of their time kvetching about the price of health insurance, they sure don’t shy away from enacting legislation which makes it more expensive.