Mental health parity progress.

The House of Representatives last month passed its version of a bill that would put mental health coverage on equal footing with benefits for physical conditions. The Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act (H.R. 1424) passed 268-148; it now has to be reconciled with a Senate bill that was put on hold in 2007 (see related Guest Editorial on p. 8). The House legislation also included the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which was reported out of a Senate committee in April 2007. There are sticking points between the House and Senate, however. The House would pay for coverage by increasing drug manufacturers' rebates to Medicaid and by limiting physician ownership of specialty hospitals. The Senate bill was silent on funding. Advocates were optimistic that an agreement was close, after 10 years of lobbying. Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, president of the American Psychiatric Association, said in a statement that untreated mental illness costs $200 billion a year in lost productivity and increased burdens for public programs. "The costs of not passing parity legislation are too high to ignore," she said. The House bill would require insurers to have "fairness" between copays, deductibles, and coinsurance for mental and physical illnesses; treatment limitations would also have to be equitable.