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Key Facts
- National overview: The original ABA Now page at abanow.org/2013/06/2013am101/ was not recoverable in this run because the legacy URL returned HTTP 404.
- Federal level: Later government-hosted ABA materials indicate that 2013 AM 101 was an ABA House of Delegates item tied to parity in coverage for mental health, but the full phrase was truncated in the available evidence.
- Federal level: ABA policy positions are not binding federal law, so the current legal rules come from MHPAEA and related federal regulations rather than from the ABA archive item itself.
- Federal level: CMS states that the final federal regulation implementing MHPAEA was published on November 13, 2013, making November 2013 a major legal milestone in the parity timeline.
- Federal level: MHPAEA generally prevents plans that offer mental health or substance use disorder benefits from imposing less favorable benefit limitations on those benefits than on medical or surgical benefits.
- Federal level: MHPAEA does not itself require every group health plan or issuer to cover mental health or substance use disorder benefits.
- Federal level: The statute addresses concrete parity concepts including financial requirements, treatment limitations, and out-of-network coverage when a plan offers out-of-network medical or surgical benefits.
- National overview: CMS states that some states may have mental health parity requirements that are stricter than federal requirements.
- Federal level: According to the May 15, 2025 interagency statement, agencies said they would not enforce new portions of the 2024 final rule during the stated period, while MHPAEA’s underlying statutory obligations remain in effect.
Last reviewed: May 2026. Legal rules, forms, deadlines, and procedures can change by jurisdiction, agency, and court system.
- This archive recovery starts with a missing page
- What later records suggest about 2013 AM 101
- Why the ABA history is not the same as binding law
- Why June 2013 and November 2013 both matter historically
- What MHPAEA does in plain language
- Concrete parity concepts the statute actually covers
- Federal law and State law do not always match
- What current federal sources say about the rule status now
- What can be said with confidence about the missing archive item
- Bottom line
- Sources
This archive recovery starts with a missing page
This is an archive recovery article, not a direct reproduction of the original ABA Now post. In this run, the legacy URL for 2013 AM 101 returned a 404 result, so the original headline, full text, and exact article angle could not be verified from the source page itself.
That missing-page problem matters because the slug `2013am101` does not explain the subject on its own. The safest reading is therefore limited and evidence-first: the unrecovered ABA archive item appears to have referred to an ABA House of Delegates item numbered 2013 AM 101, but the exact June 2013 page content remains unknown.
What later records suggest about 2013 AM 101
The best available indirect evidence in this run comes from a government-hosted ABA House of Delegates document adopted in 2019. That document refers back to 2013 AM 101 and states that it called for parity in coverage for mental health and then continues with a truncated phrase. Because the sentence is incomplete in the available extract, this article does not fill in the missing words by inference.
Even with that limit, the later document supports two careful conclusions:
- 2013 AM 101 appears to have been an ABA House of Delegates resolution number.
- The subject was connected to mental health parity coverage.
That is enough to identify the historical lane of the missing item, but not enough to state its exact title, full text, or whether the lost ABA Now page announced adoption, debate, recommendation, or reporting around the measure.
Why the ABA history is not the same as binding law
The American Bar Association can adopt policy positions, but those positions are not themselves federal statutes or regulations. That distinction is important here. Even if the missing June 2013 item concerned mental health parity, the controlling legal rules come from Congress and the federal agencies that implement MHPAEA.
In plain English, the ABA archive item appears to belong to the policy and advocacy side of the story, while MHPAEA and its regulations belong to the binding law side. Readers looking for current legal information therefore need the historical ABA context and the current federal sources side by side.
Why June 2013 and November 2013 both matter historically
June 2013 matters because the legacy ABA URL points to a mid-2013 institutional item identified as 2013 AM 101. That suggests the ABA was publicly engaging with mental health parity issues during that period.
November 2013 matters because CMS states that a final regulation implementing the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, or MHPAEA, was published in the Federal Register on November 13, 2013. CMS also states that the regulation became effective on January 13, 2014 and generally applied to plan years beginning on or after July 1, 2014.
So even though the June archive page could not be recovered, 2013 still stands out as a pivotal year in the broader parity timeline.
What MHPAEA does in plain language
According to CMS, MHPAEA is a federal law that generally prevents group health plans and health insurance issuers that provide mental health or substance use disorder benefits from imposing less favorable benefit limitations on those benefits than on medical or surgical benefits.
That wording is narrower than many casual summaries. The law does not say that every plan must cover mental health or substance use disorder treatment in the first place. Instead, when a plan offers both categories of benefits, parity rules limit how the mental health or substance use disorder side can be restricted compared with the medical or surgical side.
The U.S. Department of Labor describes this same idea in more practical terms, including common parity issues such as copays, out-of-network coverage, and nonquantitative treatment limits like preauthorization standards.
Concrete parity concepts the statute actually covers
The primary statutory text gives several specific examples of what parity means.
| Concept | What the statute says in substance |
|---|---|
| Financial requirements | Financial requirements on mental health or substance use disorder benefits cannot be more restrictive than the predominant financial requirements applied to substantially all medical and surgical benefits. |
| Treatment limitations | Treatment limitations on mental health or substance use disorder benefits cannot be more restrictive than the predominant treatment limitations applied to substantially all medical and surgical benefits. |
| Out-of-network coverage | If a plan offers out-of-network medical or surgical benefits, it must also provide out-of-network mental health or substance use disorder benefits consistently with parity requirements. |
These points help explain why mental health parity became such a significant legal and policy topic. The issue is not only whether a benefit exists, but also whether the plan structure makes that benefit harder to use on the mental health side than on the medical side.
Federal law and State law do not always match
Federal law provides the national baseline discussed above, but State law can add more. CMS states that some states may have mental health parity requirements that are stricter than federal requirements.
That means the historical ABA policy discussion and the federal statute are only part of the picture. State insurance rules can create additional protections for insured coverage, while federal law remains central to the overall parity framework. This varies by state.
For readers browsing older ABA material, that federal-versus-state split is a useful reminder that one institutional policy item does not describe the whole legal landscape.
What current federal sources say about the rule status now
Current status is more complicated than a simple “2013 rule in, 2024 rule out” summary. According to the May 15, 2025 interagency statement from the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury, the 2024 final rule amended the 2013 final rule. The same statement also says the Departments will not enforce new portions of the 2024 final rule before a final decision in the litigation, plus an additional 18 months.
At the same time, the agencies stated that MHPAEA’s statutory obligations, as amended by the CAA, 2021, continue to have effect, and that plans and issuers may continue to refer to the 2013 final rule. So the 2013 framework still matters historically and operationally, even though newer rulemaking and current nonenforcement posture also shape the present picture.
Because that enforcement position is time-sensitive, current official agency materials matter more than older summaries when describing present status.
What can be said with confidence about the missing archive item
The most accurate recovery summary is narrow:
- The original ABA Now page could not be recovered from the legacy URL in this run.
- Later government-hosted ABA material indicates that 2013 AM 101 was an ABA House of Delegates item.
- The available indirect wording ties that item to parity in coverage for mental health, but not to a fully recoverable title or full sentence.
- The ABA item was part of a broader 2013 parity conversation that also included the major federal MHPAEA regulation published in November 2013.
- The controlling legal information today comes from MHPAEA, its implementing framework, and current federal agency statements, not from the missing ABA page alone.
For readers interested in how older ABA materials fit into larger institutional history, other archive recovery pieces on TheFirstFile include Justice Anthony Kennedy at the ABA Annual Meeting and an ABA House of Delegates resolution archive entry, both of which help show how ABA news pages often preserved organizational policy moments rather than binding legal texts.
Bottom line
The lost 2013 AM 101 page cannot be reconstructed word for word from the evidence available here. Still, the surviving record is enough to place it in context. It appears to have been an ABA House of Delegates-related archive item connected to mental health parity coverage, and it sits in the same year that federal agencies identify as a key implementation moment for MHPAEA.
That combination makes the archive item historically meaningful, even though its exact original wording remains unrecovered and current legal status must be drawn from official federal sources rather than from the vanished ABA page.
