House committee passes Wellstone mental health parity bill

Updated: July 18, 2007 - 5:52 PM

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WASHINGTON A House panel Wednesday passed legislation named for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone that would require equal health insurance coverage for mental and physical illnesses, when policies include both.

The bill, sponsored by Reps. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., and Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., passed the House Education and Labor Committee on a 33-9 vote.

"This bill is about treating people equally," Kennedy said in a statement. "If you can get care for heart disease or cancer or diabetes out of network, but you can't get care for alcoholism or depression or PTSD out of network, that's not equal."

Wellstone, who died in a plane crash in 2002, championed the issue for years. In 1996, he and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., won passage of a law banning plans that offer mental health coverage from setting lower annual and lifetime spending limits for mental treatments than for physical ailments.

This year's bill, The "Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act" would build on that by adding things like co-payments, deductibles and treatment limitations, a longtime goal of Wellstone's.