Biden Administration Proposes Increased Funding for Mental Health Services

The mission of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is to enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services.

The President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Budget supports the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) mission to promote the health and well-being of all Americans by ensuring all Americans have access to affordable healthcare; improving maternal and reproductive health outcomes; strengthening early care and education; addressing the needs of Indian Country; and advancing scientific innovation. This budget supports HHS’s mission by investing in critical program operations and infrastructure.

The HHS budget includes $130.7 billion in discretionary and $1.7 trillion in mandatory proposed budget authority for HHS in FY 2025. Some of budget proposals include:

• Artificial Intelligence. The budget includes $6 million for artificial intelligence activities, including overseeing HHS’s use of artificial intelligence and mitigating risks.
  
• Growing the Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Workforce. The FY 2025 budget includes $254 million, which is $57 million above FY 2023, to train behavioral health providers, grow the behavioral health workforce, and increase access to behavioral health services.
  
• Mental Health Parity. The budget includes proposals to ensure that the parity requirements of the law apply to the mental health and substance use disorder benefits offered by Medicare Advantage plans.
  
• Modernize Medicare Mental Health Benefits. The budget includes a proposal that allows Medicare to identify and designate additional professionals who could enroll in Medicare and be paid when furnishing behavioral health services.
  
• Health Care Workforce Innovation. The FY 2025 budget invests $10 million for a new program to jumpstart strategies to grow the healthcare workforce and address healthcare workforce shortages across disciplines such as physicians, nursing, and behavioral health.
  
• Maternal Mental Health Hotline. The FY 2025 budget includes $7 million, the same as enacted in FY 2023, for the Maternal Mental Health Hotline.
  
• Reaching Rural Communities. The budget invests $352 million to support grant programs and technical assistance for rural communities, including maternal health, behavioral health, including substance use disorder, and improving the quality of care and financial viability of rural providers.
  
• Telehealth. The budget includes $38 million for telehealth services to increase healthcare quality and access, expand provider trainings, and improve health outcomes in rural and underserved areas.
  
• Suicide Prevention. The FY 2025 budget requests $68 million, $38 million above FY 2023, for CDC’s Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Program.
  
• Recovery Support Services. The budget includes flat funding for several recovery support service programs, including $16 million for Building Communities of Recovery, $6 million for Opioid Recovery Centers, $12 million for Treatment, Recovery, and Workforce Support, and $2 million for the Youth Prevention and Recovery Initiative.

For more information on the proposed HHS budget or if you would like to become involved in ACA’s advocacy efforts please contact the ACA Government Affairs and Public Policy team at advocacy@counseling.org