Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007

PAUL WELLSTONE MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTION EQUITY ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - March 05, 2008)

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Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, today the House is considering H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. I strongly support the mental health community and believe that millions of Americans living with mental health illness and addiction need access to treatment. Screening and early treatment remains an important and cost-effective way of combating mental health illness and addiction.

Unfortunately, the bill before us today seeks to extend mental health treatment by stifling innovation, increasing health insurance cost to employers and employees and mandates that ALL diagnoses, such as `jet lag' and `caffeine intoxication' listed in the DSM-IV be covered.

A provision in H.R. 1424 also seeks to limit physician ownership in hospitals, regardless of whether those hospitals are in rural or small communities. Physician owned hospitals strive to eliminate preventable complications and errors in order to improve patient care. Specialty care hospitals are an integral part of our community in Nebraska. They provide quality care and help keep costs down. A February article in Forbes highlighted a University of Iowa study which found that tens of thousands of Medicare patients' complication rates for hip and knee surgeries were 40 percent lower at specialty hospitals than at other hospitals.

Mr. Speaker, unlike the Senate bill which requires that insurance companies consider all mental ailments listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the legislation before us goes one step further by requiring groups which offer mental health benefits to cover all diagnoses under the DSM-IV, this includes disorders such as `jet lag' and `caffeine intoxication.' Furthermore, groups would be required to extend current mental health benefits regardless of religious or moral objections they may have to paying for the treatment of psycho-sexual disorders or dubious complaints of less serious problems.

Finally, the bill would increase health insurance costs. The CBO estimates that by 2012, H.R. 1424 would cost $3 billion annually, a cost which would be passed on to employers and employees.

I am concerned that the government mandate currently proposed by H.R. 1424, though well-intentioned, could actually reduce access to mental health care. Many health plans are already responding to customer demand by gradually implementing greater coverage of mental health treatments. Mandating that such coverage would be immediately equal with medical and surgical benefits could force some plans to drop mental health benefits altogether leaving Americans in need of coverage with none at all.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to come to this floor and vote for a Mental Health Parity bill like the one I supported in the Energy and Commerce Committee last fall. Unfortunately, this is not the same legislation, and therefore I must reluctantly oppose it.

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