Senate HELP Committee likely to pass mental health parity bill

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee likely will pass legislation that would require health insurance companies to cover mental illnesses at the same level as they cover physical illnesses, committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said, CQ HealthBeat reports.

The legislation would bar insurers that cover mental illnesses from imposing limits on care not applied to physical illnesses, but it would not require all insurers to provide mental health coverage.

Mental health parity legislation has had support from a majority of both chambers for the past decade, but it never moved out of conference committees, CQ HealthBeat reports.

Employers and health insurers have lobbied to defeat the legislation, saying it would raise costs. Kennedy said the legislation has a "very good" chance of being passed by the HELP Committee.

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), the bill's original author, said the legislation likely will pass this year because of the Democratic majority in the House. He added, "It's not going to die in conference this time.

That House will not let it die in conference." Andrew Sperling, director of federal legislative advocacy for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said, "We don't have the opposition from House Democratic leadership" that was present when the Republicans were in the majority.

He also said that the "regulatory landscape has changed dramatically," noting that 40 states already have mental health parity laws in effect.

President Bush in 2002 indicated that he would sign mental health parity legislation, CQ HealthBeat reports (Spieler, CQ HealthBeat, 2/5).