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Volume 13 Number 63 By Steve Teske News: Mental Health Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) April 1 said the House can work with a compromise proposal on mental health parity legislation (S. 558, H.R. 1424) recently offered by two key senators, describing the proposal as a "huge sign" from the Senate that they are serious about Congress passing parity legislation this year. Kennedy, a chief architect of the House parity bill, told reporters that the House and Senate and stakeholders are involved in talks on parity legislation, and predicted the two chambers would reach an agreement that maintains "as much of the integrity of the House bill while [being able] to make it through the Senate." "We can work with it to come up with something that [the Senate] can go back with and pass," Kennedy said of the offer from Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.). 'Very Determined.' "I'm very determined to reach an agreement [and] I know they are very determined to reach an agreement," Kennedy said of the senators. "That's why they proposed their own counter-offer. That's a huge sign that's very encouraging that they mean business, that they want to pass something themselves." Kennedy and Domenici March 18 offered the House a compromise mental health parity proposal that jettisoned House language requiring employers to cover all illnesses listed in a provider manual and offers several other key changes, according to congressional aides and parity advocates. Both the House and Senate bills would require health plans offering mental health coverage to provide the same benefits for mental illness as they do for other medical conditions. Employers with fewer than 50 workers would be exempt under the bills. But there were significant differences between the measures that were the subject of the Kennedy/Domenici offer. A mental health parity advocate told BNA March 19 that,among other provisions, the offer did not include House language requiring employers to cover all illnesses listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV), and embodies provisions on out-of-network coverage that move the Senate more toward language in the House parity bill. Rep. Kennedy Won't Comment on Details Rep. Kennedy declined comment on details of the senators' plan, and said the House would not offer a counterproposal, but would rather work with the senators to produce a final agreement. He offered no timetable for an agreement. Rep. Kennedy also noted that the proposal by Sens. Kennedy and Domenici is not supported by the business community, which, he said, is evidence that the House's bargaining position with the Senate has strengthened since passage of H.R. 1424. "You would have never seen that prior to our House bill," Rep. Kennedy told reporters. "They were all about 'Well, this has to be signed, sealed, and delivered by the business community.' What we got from the Senate was a Senate proposal signed off by Sen. Domenici." Business groups have rallied behind the Senate bill, saying it would be less costly than H.R. 1424. The White House also is backing S. 558. Rep. Kennedy said parity negotiators are consulting with the business community as they work to reach an agreement, however. H.R. 1424, estimated to cost the federal government $4.3 billion over 10 years, is paid for, in part, by prohibiting physicians in Medicare from referring patients to hospitals in which they have an ownership interest. A second funding measure would increase the size of prescription drug rebates pharmaceutical companies must provide state Medicaid programs. Rep. Kennedy said House and Senate negotiators also are discussing how to pay for a compromise bill, because the House funding provisions "frankly, are not going to fly in the Senate." He declined comment on additional funding proposals under consideration by negotiators.
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