By
a unanimous voice vote, the U.S. Senate last night passed
full insurance parity legislation as an amendment to an
unrelated spending bill covering the Departments of Labor,
Health and Human Services and Education (HR 3061/S 1536).
This action again puts the Senate on record in support
of nondiscriminatory insurance coverage of treatment for
mental illness. The effort to enact full parity
legislation this year now shifts to the House of Representatives,
which has historically been less receptive to efforts
to establish federal standards for health insurance coverage.
Action Required
NAMI
advocates are now strongly encouraged to begin contacting
House members to urge them to support adding parity legislation
to the final version of the FY 2002 Labor-HHS-Education
spending bill (HR 3061). Since full parity legislation
is now an amendment to this "must pass" bill
it is particularly important for members of the House
Appropriations Committee to hear from NAMI advocates about
the need to pass full parity legislation in 2001.
NAMI NEW JERSEY advocates are encouraged to write these
New Jersey members of the House Appropriations Committee:
Congressman
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen
30 Schuyler Place, Second Floor
Morristown, NJ 07960
(973) 984-0711
Rodney.Frelinghuysen@mail.house.gov
Congressman
Steven R. Rothman
Both
the President and House and Senate leaders will be pushing
to complete action on the Labor-HHS-Education spending
bill as quickly as possible. Thus, time is of the
essence.
In
addition, all House and Senate offices can be reached
by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or
by going to the policy page of the NAMI Web site at http://www.nami.org/policy.htm
and click on "Write to Congress." However,
the recent discovery of anthrax in several congressional
office buildings has significantly disrupted the operation
of many House and Senate offices - especially mail delivery
and phone operations. At the same time, all local
district offices of House members and Senators remain
fully operational. Therefore, NAMI advocates are
strongly encouraged to contact the district offices for
their members of Congress that are listed in the Federal
Government sections of the "Blue Pages" in local
phone books. NAMI advocates choosing to send a e-mail
are encouraged to include their local address to ensure
that staff understand that call to support S 543 is coming
from a constituent.
"Talking Points" on Parity
In
contacting members of Congress in support of parity, please
remind them that:
- mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar
disorder, major depression,
obsessive-compulsive disorder and severe anxiety disorders
are real illnesses,
- treatment works - if consumers and their families
can get it (treatment
efficacy rates for most severe mental illnesses exceed
those for heart disease
and diabetes),
- there is simply no scientific or medical justification
for insurance coverage
of mental illness treatment to be on different terms
and conditions than other
diseases,
- discriminatory insurance coverage of mental illness
bankrupts families and
places a tremendous burden on taxpayers,
- parity is affordable - the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) estimates that S
543 will increase insurance premiums by less than 1%
(a finding that is
consistent with numerous previous studies that demonstrate
how
nondiscriminatory coverage is economical and results
in better treatment
outcomes),
- 34 states have enacted parity laws similar to S
543, but even these laws offer
no protection for workers and their families that receive
coverage through
self-insured ERISA plans, and
·
renewing the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act for an indefinite
period would wipe
out an important opportunity to end insurance discrimination
against people with
mental illnesses once and for all.
Details on Senate Passage of S 543
The
existing Federal Parity Law expired on October 1 of this
year. In order to move parity ahead it was offered
as an amendment put forward by Senators Pete Domenici
(R-NM) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) on the FY 2002 Labor-HHS-Education
spending bill. Their amendment is nearly identical
to the previous version of the Mental Health Equitable
Treatment Act (S 543) that was approved by the Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on August
1. In order to accommodate the Senate's complicated
rules governing germaneness of amendments and budget process,
Senators Domenici and Wellstone were forced to put off
the effective date for parity until January 1, 2003.
More importantly, an
expected
amendment to create a cost increase exemption was NOT
offered by senators seeking to undermine the objectives
of parity. Otherwise, all of the protections in
S 543 remain intact - including key requirements for health
plans to eliminate all discriminatory limits on inpatient
and outpatient treatment and all discriminatory enrollee
cost sharing obligations. Additional background
on S 543 is available at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:2:./temp/~c107Z0vzoN::
http://www.nami.org/update/20010801a.htm
Please
distribute this Alert to other advocates for improved
mental health
services in New Jersey. If you would like to receive
NAMI NEW JERSEY
Advocacy Alerts by email, contact Phil Lubitz, the Advocacy
Network
Coordinator at mailto:plubitz@optonline.net or by phone (732) 940-0991.
NAMI
NEW JERSEY:
www.naminj.org
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