Review State-Mandated Health Benefits

State-mandated health benefits impose special interest group preferences on every medical consumer. They can also increase medical insurance costs.

Arkansas individuals, families and providers should not be required to pay for state-mandated health benefits they do not use or want.

Examples of state-mandated health benefits include treatment for hair transplants, acupuncture, podiatry, and alternative health practices like naturopathy and osteopathy.

According to StateHealthFacts.org, a project of the Kaiser Family Foundation, all 50 states including Arkansas require private insurers to cover treatment for various services.

One scholarly article found the "average number of mandated benefit laws enacted per year was one per year between 1949 and 1969, 17 per year in the 1970s, and 37 per year in the 1980s, rising to 57 per year by the 1990s."

The authors concluded, "There was a large increase in the number of mandated benefits laws during the managed care "backlash" of the 1990s. Many states now use mandated benefits to prescribe not only what services and benefits would be provided but how, where, and when services will be provided."

"A Comparative Analysis of Mandated Benefit Laws, 1949–2002"
Miriam J Laugesen, Rebecca R Paul, Harold S Luft, Wade Aubry, and Theodore G Ganiats
Health Services Research 2006 June; 41(3 Pt 2): 1081–1103.