Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 7780 - Mental Health Matters Act of 2022

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

(House Rules)
(Rep. DeSaulnier, D-CA, and 3 cosponsors)

The Administration supports House passage of H.R. 7780, the Mental Health Matters Act of 2022, which will expand access to mental health and substance use services for youth.

Our nation is facing an urgent need to prioritize mental health as a critical aspect of well-being. The Administration is focused on dramatically increasing mental health support among our youth, from early childhood through adolescence - especially as we recover from the pandemic. That's why the President made increasing support for mental health a key component of his Unity Agenda, laying out a vision to transform how mental health is understood, perceived, accessed, treated, and integrated - in and out of health care settings.

H.R. 7780 would help improve the well-being of young children in Head Start and K-12 schools, including by building on the President's efforts to increase the number of school-based mental health services providers and authorizing grants to partnerships between high-need local educational agencies and institutions of higher education - including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Minority-Serving Institutions - to provide pathways to State credentials in these roles. And it will create programs to provide youth, their families, and staff with greater access to trauma-informed supports and mental health services. H.R. 7780 is also aligned with the President's commitment to address longstanding educational inequities in postsecondary education so that students with disabilities have the opportunity to learn and succeed commensurate with their nondisabled peers.

H.R. 7780 will strengthen the provision of affordable mental and other health care by authorizing critical tools and resources for the Secretary of Labor to enforce provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, including those added by the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. And it will help prevent Americans from being improperly denied mental health and substance use benefits by ensuring a fair standard of review by the courts and banning so-called forced arbitration agreements.

The Administration urges the House to pass the Mental Health Matters Act of 2022.