Mental Health Parity Bill Passes U.S. House
by Christine Stuart | March 6, 2008 11:20 AM
Posted to Health Care
Congress took one more step Wednesday to ensure Americans with mental health issues are not discriminated against by insurance companies.
The United States House of Representatives passed the mental health parity bill by a vote of 268 to 148. The Senate has passed a similar bill.
“We’ve just taken another important step toward ensuring that mental illness is covered by health insurance just as any physical injury or disease,” said US. Senator Chris Dodd said in a press release Wednesday. “Unfortunately, mental health and substance-related disorders still carry a negative stigma that often discourages patients from pursuing and accessing the help they need.”
“I am proud to support legislation that will begin to right this wrong. And, I commend my friend, Congressman Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, for his hard work on this issue,” Congressman John Larson, D-1, said in a press release.
Click here to read our story from December about Congressman Kennedy’s advocacy for the bill. And here to see the special interest money behind the passage of the bill.
Comments (1)
Posted by: Kevin Lembo | March 7, 2008 6:10 AM
This is great news! Now the trick will be getting the house and senate bills combines into something that will pass. All things considered, the House bill is stronger. However, now that we were successful in getting the preemption language out of the Senate version (see Sen. Dodd's comments here), either version protects our stronger state law and would be far better than the present Federal law.
You can see Sen. Dodd's comments at: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=110-s20070918-53&person=300036