Mental health advocates push the house to pass Bailout Bill that includes mental health parity
03 10 08 - 12:41
Lawmakers see big chance for mental health parity bill
Rescue bill holds last shot for passage this year
By Kevin Freking - Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Solving the nation's economic crisis also may help Americans struggling with getting treatment for mental illness. These patients often face an added burden: limited insurance coverage compared with people whose ills are physical. The massive economic bill coming before the House addresses that problem.
Insurance plans routinely require mental health patients to pick up more of the initial costs of their care through higher deductibles and co-payments. Other times, insurance plans have stricter limits on how often patients with mental problems can see their doctors.
Changing that has broad support in Congress, but time is running out for this year. The only vehicle left is the economic rescue package coming before the House as early as today.
The requirement for equal treatment would apply to health plans that cover more than 50 employees — potentially reaching 113 million people nationwide.
Health officials contend equal protections for mental health conditions would lead to a healthier, more productive work force.
"There's a phenomenon ... where you've got a psychiatric illness and you're able to get around but you can't do your work at the same quality you did before," said Dr. Nada Stotland, president of the American Psychiatric Association.
"Many workers today are in the service industry. If a person on the other end of the line is depressed, they may have shown up to work and they may be present, but they will not necessarily make us happy about the company that we're calling. They'll be slow, unhappy and maybe irritable, and their powers of concentration won't be good. So more and more companies want to see their employees treated." For Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., passage of the legislation would cap a six-term Senate career that is coming to an end. The Domenicis have a daughter diagnosed with atypical schizophrenia. He got involved in the parity issue after joining a National Alliance on Mental Illness support group. On his way home from work, he and his wife, Nancy, would meet with parents of children with mental health problems.
"The first real understanding of how broad the problem was came from those meetings where I met with mothers and fathers who had children who were mentally ill, and they were going bankrupt because they couldn't pay the health bills, or their children were in jails instead of hospitals," Domenici said.
He said perceptions about the ability to treat mental health problems have changed greatly over the years, but coverage also has become an expensive proposition. So, he and others, such as the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., began pushing for health insurance parity. Pushback came from those who would have to bear most of the expense.
"Those who stood to lose fought hard, and that was principally insurance companies and businesses," Domenici said.
To address employers' concerns, the legislation does not mandate that group health plans cover mental health or addiction treatment. But if they do, the coverage must be equitable with other medical coverage.
Employers and insurers were concerned legislation would have required plans to cover a "telephone book" of conditions, raising costs beyond what companies and workers could afford and potentially negating companies' ability to offer health coverage at all. The insurance industry is now a strong supporter of the parity legislation before the House.
In 1996, Sens. Wellstone and Domenici won passage of a law banning insurance plans that offer mental health coverage from setting lower annual and lifetime spending limits for mental treatments than for physical ailments.
The pair teamed up again in 2001 on a predecessor to the legislation now before the House. After Wellstone was killed in a plane crash in 2002, Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., took on larger roles in getting a bill passed.
On the House side, the effort for "mental health parity" was led by Reps. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., and Jim Ramstad, R-Minn. Both had battled addictions.
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