A bipartisan group of senators on Monday announced that the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday will mark up a draft bill on mental health parity, CQ HealthBeat reports. Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) introduced the bill, which would require insurance companies to cover mental illnesses at the same level as they do physical illnesses. Unlike previous mental health parity legislation, the bill also would include substance abuse as a mental health condition eligible for coverage. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees would be exempt from the bill's mandates (Spieler, CQ HealthBeat, 2/12). Group health plans and employers also would be exempt from the requirements if the cost of mental health coverage exceeded 2% of the total plan cost in the first year or 1% in each subsequent year. The bill would not pre-empt state laws that mandate mental health parity, but it would overrule state mandates on financial requirements and treatment limitations for mental health services (Johnson, CongressDaily, 2/12). According to CQ Today, "Mental health parity legislation has languished for a decade," and no measure has ever made it through the legislative process. Domenici said the political environment has since changed (Spieler, CQ Today, 2/12). Endorsements from America's Health Insurance Plans, the National Retail Federation, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and potentially the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "as well as the change to a Democratic-controlled Congress, brighten prospects" for the bill, the Wall Street Journal reports (Zhang, Wall Street Journal, 2/13).

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Domenici called the bill "a winner for millions of Americans" who have mental illnesses. "What we are doing here is simple fairness," he said. Kennedy said the bill represents a historic compromise between the health insurance industry and proponents of equity in mental health coverage. He added that while the bill is not perfect, it is a "very important down payment." Enzi said the introduction of the legislation "is a great first step," but he called the current compromise a "tenuous agreement" (Spieler, CQ HealthBeat, 2/12). AHIP President Karen Ignagni said the bill "addresses very reasonable concerns that the employer community has raised about the costs of the proposed parity requirement" (Wall Street Journal, 2/13).