March 6, 2008

House passes mental health parity bill

Legislation updates provided by Rob Smith, Ceridian manager of Government Relations

House passes mental health parity bill
On March 5, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. Nearly 300 of the 435 members of the House of Representatives had cosponsored the bill before it was brought to the floor, which made its passage certain.

H.R. 1424 would require insurance plans to provide the same level of coverage for mental health treatment as they do for health care. The Senate passed its own mental health parity bill last year, but significant differences between the two measures may prevent the two bodies from working out a compromise bill that could be passed by the full Congress and signed into law.

One of the main differences between the two bills is that the Senate's would limit the mental illnesses and disorders insurers would be required to cover to those that are listed in government insurance policies. The House measure would mandate that insurers cover a wide array of afflictions recognized in the mental health industry's diagnostic manual, which many employer groups say would be prohibitively expensive and difficult for employer-sponsored plans to implement. It is highly unlikely that the House bill could be approved in the Senate.

Mental health advocacy groups are evenly split on which bill they support, and neither the House nor the Senate is likely to budge in the near future, which may leave mental health parity in limbo for the rest of the Congressional session.