House committee passes mental health parity bill; But battle looming over key differences with Senate measure.(laws and rules of Congress. House)

Business Insurance, July, 2007 by Geisel, Jerry

Byline: JERRY GEISEL WASHINGTON-Passage last week of mental health care benefits parity legislation by a House of Representatives panel sets the stage for a showdown with the Senate. As expected, the Education and Labor Committee approved, on a 33-9 vote, legislation that would force many employers to upgrade their mental health care benefits plans.

The bill-like one cleared in February by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee-would require employers to provide the same financial cost-sharing requirements for mental health coverage as they do for other medical conditions (see box, page 6). For example, if a group health care plan covered 80% of medical treatments, it would have to do the same for mental health care expenses....

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.