New York Times Editorial Urges Passage of Senate Mental Health Parity Bill

Commenting on House and Senate negotiations this week to reach a compromise on mental health parity, a New York Times editorial says that the Senate has "rightly" passed a provision as part of its Labor-HHS appropriations bill that would "outlaw the disparities between insurance coverage for mental and physical illnesses," but that the House's Labor-HHS bill contains a form of "limited parity" that "does not begin to address the real disparities facing mental health patients" (New York Times, 12/10). The Senate-passed measure, as it stands, would require insurers that provide mental health coverage to offer benefits at the same level as the benefits provided for physical health coverage, with respect to both costs (such as deductibles) and access to services (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 12/5). The House provisions, however, do not address issues such as higher copayments and lower caps on outpatient and inpatient treatments for mental health care. Since the Senate plan offers "real parity," President Bush should direct House leaders to "embrace it." The Times concludes the Senate-passed provision would "force many large health plans ... to stop treating [mental health treatment] as a lesser form of medicine" and would give patients "some relief from an outmoded stigma" (New York Times, 12/10).