House leaders say they will consider mental health parity as stand-alone bill this week

House leaders on Thursday told mental health lobbyists that mental health parity legislation will be taken up as a stand-alone bill next week under suspension of the rules, a procedure that prohibits amendments and requires a two-thirds majority for the bill to pass, CongressDaily reports (Edney, CongressDaily, 9/19).

Lawmakers reached an agreement in July that would combine the House and Senate mental health parity bills by removing a House mandate on coverage of specific mental health conditions in favor of one that would require that mental health benefits be equal to physical health benefits. No funding mechanism was included in the agreement (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 9/17).

The $3.4 billion House measure will be offset by taxes and restrictions imposed on physician-owned hospitals, according to lobbyists. The restrictions, taken from a Senate bill passed earlier this year, are less strict than those originally passed by the House. House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chair Pete Stark (D-Calif.) warned that the restrictions could become harsher if negotiations on the bill continue into next year.

A House leadership aide said, "Since it is unclear what the Senate is going to send up with respect to their tax package, we are keeping our options open as we head into next week." The Senate this week said it would include the parity bill in a tax extenders bill (S 3001), although the package "faces hurdles in the House" because portions of it do not have funding offsets, CongressDaily reports.

Andrew Sperling, a lobbyist with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said, "We have to be respectful of the fact that the House has its rules," adding, "No one is questioning the commitment of leadership to get mental health parity done" (Edney, CongressDaily, 9/19).

Senate Banking Committee Chair Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) on Wednesday said the Senate has decided to name its parity bill the "Wellstone-Domenici bill," after Sens. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), who died in 2002, and Pete Domenici (R-N.M.). The senators "championed" the first parity bill, passed in 1996, CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 9/18).

Letter

"We applaud Congress for the monumental step of reconciling bipartisan bicameral bills to produce" the parity measure but "despite widespread support, Congress has not found a way to pass [this] bill that would benefit millions of Americans and save money in the long run," Rosalynn Carter, wife of former President Jimmy Carter and Chair of the Carter Center Mental Health Task Force, and Betty Ford, widow of former President Gerald Ford and founding chair of the Betty Ford Center, write in a Washington Post letter to the editor. According to Ford and Carter, "Major mental disorders cost the nation at least $193 billion annually in lost wages, and the cost of alcohol and drug problems ... is over $400 billion."

In addition, "When insurance companies deny people coverage, these costs and others are shifted to the economy and public sector," they write. The authors add that "this legislation is good for families, business and patients." They conclude, "We cannot wait any longer to make this crucial investment in our nation's health and help people in need" (Carter/Ford, Washington Post, 9/19).