US House OKs bill backing mental health coverage

A bill to require health insurers to provide the same level of coverage for mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction as for other ailments was passed on Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The White House made clear its opposition to the bill, saying it favored a less-expansive version passed unanimously by the Senate last September.

Known as mental health parity, the idea is making progress in Congress after a decade-long crusade by advocates for the mentally ill who say insurers can shortchange people with mental conditions ranging from depression to schizophrenia.

The House passed the bill on a vote of 268-148. It calls for more expansive mental health coverage requirements than the Senate bill. Opponents said it could actually decrease mental health coverage by driving employers frustrated with its onerous burdens to drop mental health insurance altogether.

The bill now goes to a House-Senate conference committee for lawmakers to iron out differences in the two versions before legislation can be offered for final congressional passage and sent to President George W. Bush.

It would not force health plans to provide mental health coverage, but would compel those that offer benefits for mental illness and substance addiction treatment to do so on the same terms as medical and surgical care for other conditions.

“The administration believes the Senate bill strikes the necessary balance of treating mental illness with the same urgency as physical illnesses without significantly increasing health care costs,” the White House said, pointing to about $3 billion in new costs stemming from the House provisions.

The White House also objected to language in the House bill that would impose new restrictions on doctor-owned hospitals, which make up a small percentage of U.S. hospitals. The measure would stop doctors from referring people for treatment to hospitals in which they have an ownership stake.

‘NO SHAME’

“Mental illness—illness of the brain—must be treated just like illness anywhere else in the body,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

“There is no shame in mental illness. The great shame would be if Congress did not take action to ensure that individuals with mental health illnesses and addictions are given the attention, treatment and resources they need to lead a healthy life,” Pelosi added.

The chief sponsors of the House bill are Minnesota Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad and Rhode Island Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, whose father, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, is a sponsor of the competing Senate measure.

The bill would not permit insurers to charge higher co-payments and deductibles or impose other different standards on mental health and addiction care.

Business groups favor the Senate bill, arguing the House version would mandate expensive new treatments and hike health care costs. Some mental health advocates including the National Alliance on Mental Illness also back the Senate version, saying it is the best hope for getting a bill into law this year.

Under the House bill, insurers providing mental health coverage would do so for all mental and addiction disorders in the American Psychiatric Association’s exhaustive Diagnostic Statistical Manual.

Bill opponent Rep. Phil Gingrey, a medical doctor and a Georgia Republican, said that would mean insurance plans would have to cover exotic mental conditions like “transvestite fetishism” that employers would not want to cover.

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