[NYAPRS Enews] PJ: Kennedy to Bring MH Parity Bill To The House Floor Wednesday

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Kennedy Bringing His Mental-Health Bill To The House Floor

by JOHN E. MULLIGAN Providence Journal Washington Bureau    March 3,
2008

 

WASHINGTON - Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy plans this week to take his
signature legislation - a bill to make it easier for mental patients and
addicts to get medical coverage - to the floor of the House of
Representatives for debate and likely passage.

 

A majority vote in the House would set up a compromise conference with
the Senate, which has already passed a more restrictive version of the
legislation to put mental-health insurance on an equal footing with
coverage of physical ailments. If the two houses strike a deal, the
measure would go to President Bush's desk for his signature.

 

With a large group of allies from both parties, Rhode Island Democrat
Kennedy has framed his bill as a civil-rights issue for a segment of the
population long stigmatized by outmoded stereotypes. Too many citizens,
Kennedy has argued, are denied the access to affordable mental-health
care that has helped him in his own struggle with addiction and manic
depression.

 

But the bipartisan campaign for "mental-health parity," as it is known
in legislative shorthand, is not quite a done deal. The measure's
leading Democratic sponsor in the Senate, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, of
Massachusetts, said last week, "We've still got a ways to go." Backers
of the Senate bill say it commands industry support - and therefore a
superior chance of enactment - because it would hold down costs more
effectively than the House version.

 

For example, the House version requires coverage of an array of
afflictions recognized in the diagnostic manual of the mental-health
industry's professional organization - the fairest approach, supporters
say. The Senate uses a narrower list that guides mental-health coverage
under government insurance policies. Its supporters say this would be
more cost effective. 

 

Supporters of the Senate and House parity bills have had informal
discussions for months about possible grounds for compromise because it
has long been clear that each version had strong support in its
respective house. 

 

The elder Kennedy, father of Patrick Kennedy, led negotiations to
develop a consensus parity bill early last year that, for the first
time, drew the support of powerful business groups as well as leading
mental-health advocates. That bill passed the Senate without opposition
last fall under the sponsorship of Kennedy and Sen. Michael B. Enzi, of
Wyoming. They are, respectively, the chairman and ranking Republican on
the Senate committee with jurisdiction over health issues. 

 

The Senate measure also has such prominent, longtime supporters as
retiring Sen. Pete V. Domenici, of New Mexico. Like Patrick Kennedy and
other parity advocates, Domenici brings painful experience to the
debate: his daughter, Clare, is a schizophrenic. It was while
campaigning for Domenici's last reelection six years ago that Mr. Bush
publicly endorsed the principle of parity for mental-health insurance.

 

Both versions build on a limited mental-health parity law, enacted in
1996, that dealt largely with insurance for government employees. The
bills under consideration do not force mental-health insurance upon
private carriers. Rather, they require that insurers who offer any
treatment for mental illness must use the same basic rules that they
apply to the treatment of cancer or broken bones or other physical
ailments.

 

For example, a managed health-care company cannot impose a higher
copayment for a session with a clinical psychologist than it charges the
same patient for a visit to the internist. 

 

Health-care coverage of mental illness has long been freighted with
higher costs and treatment limitations than traditional medical-surgical
insurance. 

 

Patrick Kennedy has taken a highly personal approach to the campaign for
the parity bill that he sponsored with Rep. Jim Ramstad, Republican of
Minnesota - an alcoholic who has not taken a drink since what he calls
his "wake-up call," a humbling episode of public drunkenness more than
25 years ago. 

 

Kennedy disclosed some years ago that he is under treatment for bipolar
illness. The disorder subjects sufferers to extreme shifts of mood, from
deep depression to high exhilaration or mania - hence the term manic
depression, by which it is also known. In May 2006, he acknowledged his
alcoholism and drug dependence after he crashed his car into a Capitol
Hill police barrier while under the influence of prescription pills.

 

Kennedy sought hospital treatment and, after his return to work the next
month, introduced House colleague Ramstad as his sponsor in the 12-step
lay recovery program that they share. Early last year - in what Kennedy
has described as a valuable tool for staying free of drugs and alcohol -
he and Ramstad conducted a series of hearings around the country to
promote support for their parity bill.

 

Later, Ramstad and Kennedy steered the bill to passage through three
House legislative panels that share jurisdiction over health care - a
process that has improved chances that some of the measure's more
expansive provisions can survive in the eventual compromise with the
Senate version, according to Kennedy. 

 

The process featured some pointed criticism of the Kennedy-Ramstad bill
that may recur in a House-Senate conference over the conflicting parity
measures. 

 

"There must have been a similar debate at the kitchen table between the
senator and the congressman - both by the name of Kennedy," Rep. Frank
J. Pallone, Democrat of New Jersey, joked late in October as the
Kennedy-Ramstad bill was sent to the full House on a lopsided,
bipartisan vote of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

 

The full House debate and vote on the Kennedy-Ramstad bill is scheduled
for Wednesday.

 

http://www.projo.com/news/content/kennedy_parity_03-03-08_LB97M5V_v14.38
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