Limited Parity Law Gets One-Year Reprieve

The House of Representatives cleared a measure by voice vote last month to extend a limited mental health parity law through this year. The Senate passed the bill (S 1929) in November.

The measure was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), chair of the Senate, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The bill reauthorizes the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act for another year. It requires employer-sponsored insurance plans that provide mental health coverage to impose the same annual and lifetime dollar limits on mental health care benefits as they do on benefits for all other types of disorders.

Meanwhile, Sens. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) announced on the Senate floor in November that the Senate HELP committee and the entire Senate will make it a priority to address the Sen. Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act (S 486/HR 953) this month, according to Eugene Cassel, J.D., acting director and special counsel of APA’s Division of Government Relations. This legislation, co-sponsored by Domenici and Kennedy, would expand the parity mandate to provide full parity (Psychiatric News, March 21, 2003).

The parity bills, which were introduced in February 2003, prohibit health plans from imposing greater restrictions on treatment and more severe financial requirements on patients with mental illness than they do for patients with other types of medical illness.

Domenici and Kennedy said they secured commitments to take up the legislation in the Senate from Gregg, majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), and minority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), stated Cassel. “Once passage is achieved in the Senate, we will need to redouble our efforts in the House,” he said.

Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.), chair of the House Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations, recommended that the House pass the bill to extend the parity law for one year. He also pledged that his subcommittee will continue to examine the issue of insurance parity for mental health care, “as expanding this law is one of the many substantive changes proposed for our nation’s health care system,” according to the December 8 Congressional Record.

The Wellstone bill had 67 co-sponsors in the Senate and 243 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives last month, according to the Division of Government Relations.

The parity bills can be accessed online at http://thomas.loc.gov by searching on the bill numbers, S 1929, S 486, and HR 953. ▪