By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY

Bills that could expand access to mental health care for Americans stand a better chance of passing with the new leadership that has taken over Congress, key lobbyists, and congressional supporters of the legislation say.

Their top priority is a bill requiring insurers to offer comparable benefits for treating mental disorders and physical illnesses, known as "parity."

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., introduced three earlier parity bills. "Now our prospects are the best that they've ever been," says Matt Letourneau, spokesman for the senator.

Although parity has bipartisan support, past legislation stalled in committee because House leadership didn't favor it, says Laurel Stine of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

A 1996 federal law had required comparable dollar limits for coverage of mental disorders and medical problems but allowed caps on the number of therapy visits or days of hospitalization for mental illness.

In the past 15 years, 44 states have passed parity laws to expand coverage, the American Psychological Association says.

But many employer-sponsored health plans, particularly those offered by large companies, are exempt from such state laws, and about 55% of U.S. workers are in such plans, according to a report last year from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Key goals of a federal parity law are to equalize coverage in such plans and in all insurance programs, Stine says.

Better mental health treatment for veterans returning from the Iraq war also could come out of the new Congress, says Ralph Ibson of Mental Health America, an education and advocacy group. He says the shift in leadership on the House Veterans Affairs Committee could lead to more spending for care.

Also on the radar: reauthorization bills that could affect mental health care for Hurricane Katrina survivors and children in poor families.

A bill to reauthorize the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration could provide money to help Katrina survivors with mental disorders, Ibson says. And reauthorizing the state children's health insurance program could improve treatment benefits for children of the working poor, says Andrew Sperling of the advocacy group National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Mental health advocates also say there's strong support for a bill to help states create programs that would allow children with serious mental disorders to live with their families while they're treated. Some parents have had to give up custody to the state because they can't afford care.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, proposed the bill last session, but it died in the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., introduced the House version. Now his father, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., will head the Senate committee the bill must clear.

"I'm hopeful we'll have more success this year," says Collins, who will reintroduce the bill. "No parent should have to face such a wrenching choice of either giving up custody or not getting treatment for their child."