|
On the Issues
Mental Health-Related Bills and Issues
In the current Congress, I am a cosponsor of several pieces of legislation aimed at improving coverage, treatment, and access to mental health services. Given the wide range of support for these proposals, I am hopeful that we will be able to enact meaningful mental health legislation during the 110th Congress.
Mental Health Parity
I am concerned about the limited mental health coverage offered by private insurance companies. The Mental Health Parity Act (MHPA) of 1996 took us a step in the right direction by requiring group health plans that choose to provide mental health benefits to adopt the same annual and lifetime dollar limits for their coverage of both mental and physical illnesses. However, this law has a number of deficiencies, such as not requiring plans to cover treatment for mental illness and not establishing parity for mental health service co-payments.
I am a cosponsor of H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act, which would provide full mental health parity for employer-sponsored group health plans. It would impose the same treatment limitations and financial requirements on their mental health coverage as they do on their medical and surgical coverage, ending discrimination against those with mental illness. At the same time, the bill would provide the flexibility and cost-containment that employers desire. It would not require employers to offer mental health coverage, and it would not apply to individual markets or small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
The House approved H.R. 1424 on March 5, 2008, by a vote of 268 to 148. While the Senate passed similar legislation (S. 558) in September 2007, there are two key differences between the House and Senate parity bills. First, S. 558 would allow insurance companies to determine which mental illnesses they cover, whereas H.R. 1424 would require coverage for all mental illnesses. The second key difference is that S. 558 does not explicitly address preemption of state mental health parity laws, whereas H.R. 1424 explicitly states that it would not preempt state mental health parity laws.
House-Senate negotiations on the differences between the two bills are ongoing, and I am hopeful the House and the Senate will pass a final bill without delay.
The Child Healthcare Crisis Relief Act (H.R. 2073)
According to the Surgeon General's 1999 report on mental health, 13.7 million of the nation's children and adolescents, or one in five, have a diagnosable mental disorder. However, because mental health services to help treat children are in short supply, only one-third of these children receive mental health care. I am a cosponsor of H.R. 2073, which would address this shortage by encouraging individuals to enter children's mental health professions.
The Medicare Mental Health Modernization Act (H.R. 1663)
Medicare coverage of mental health services has not changed since the program's inception in 1965. With the ongoing changes in the field of mental health and the Surgeon General’s finding that there is an increased risk for depression and suicide in older Americans, it clearly is essential that seniors have access to these services. Many constituents have told me that they’re frustrated with Medicare’s lack of coverage for mental health services, and I can understand why. I am a cosponsor of H.R. 1663, a comprehensive bill aimed at significantly improving and expanding this coverage.
H.R. 1663 would establish parity for mental and physical illnesses and expanded access to mental health services for older and disabled Americans by eliminating the 190-day lifetime cap on inpatient services in psychiatric hospitals, reducing from 50 percent to 20 percent the co-payment for outpatient mental health services, and expanding beneficiary access to a range of community-based residential and outpatient mental health services.
Keeping Families Together Act (H.R. 687)
Services to treat serious mental disorders in children are extremely expensive, and private insurance coverage tends to run out after a few months, leaving many parents unable to afford it. Yet, affected children often remain ineligible for Medicaid because of their parents' income and assets. As a result, every year thousands of parents are forced to relinquish their custody rights in order to obtain mental health care for their seriously ill children.
H.R. 687 would provide family support grants to states to develop community systems of care for these children involving state child welfare agencies, juvenile justice agencies and mental health service providers; expand eligibility for Medicaid’s home and community-based services waiver to children and adolescents in residential treatment facilities; and create a federal interagency task force to study mental health issues in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
|
|
U.S. House of Representatives
2162 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202.225.1784
Fax: 202.225.2014 |
411 W. Chapel Hill Street
NC Mutual Building, 6th Floor
Durham, NC 27701
Phone: 919.688.3004
Fax: 919.688.0940 |
5400 Trinity Road
Suite 205
Raleigh, NC 27607
Phone: 919.859.5999
Fax: 919.859.5998 |
88 Vilcom Center
Suite 140
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
Phone: 919.967.7924
Fax: 919.967.8324 |
|
