Carter, Wellstone push mental health act

Rosalynn Carter teamed up with the son of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone on Tuesday to push for mental health insurance legislation, with the former first lady saying the goal has never been closer to realization.

"We've been working on this for so long, it finally seems to be in reach," said Carter, who has championed mental health causes for more than 35 years.

David Wellstone hopes to carry out the legacy of his father, a Minnesota Democrat who died in a plane crash in 2002.

"Although he was passionate on many issues, there was not another issue that surpassed this in terms of his passion," David Wellstone said.

Carter and Wellstone hope to win passage for the "Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act," that would require equal health insurance coverage for mental and physical illnesses when policies include both. The two advocates, along with Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., discussed the bill over lunch with The Associated Press on Tuesday, before testifying at a House subcommittee hearing on the bill.

"It's a moral issue," Carter said.

David Wellstone recalled his father talking about his own brother's battle with mental illness, and said the experience motivated him to seek to better mental health coverage laws when he got to the Senate. In 1996, Wellstone 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.

The legislation in Congress would build on that by adding things like co-payments, deductibles and treatment limitations, a longtime goal of Paul Wellstone's.

Patrick Kennedy said the bill's prospects have brightened not only because of a Democratic Congress, but also with more people getting sensitized to mental illness because of soldiers returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"It's a much different environment now," said Kennedy, who has battled depression, alcoholism and drug abuse.

But the legislation faces a competing bill in the Senate championed by Kennedy's father, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. House advocates say it doesn't go far enough.

The Senate bill came from a compromise following negotiations with businesses, the insurance industry and mental health advocates. Business and insurance groups fought previous versions, contending the legislation would drive up insurance costs.

The House version says that if a plan provides mental health benefits, it must cover conditions provided by the health plan with the highest average enrollment of federal employees. The Senate bill lacks similar language.

Another difference is that the Senate bill calls for pre-emption of state parity laws in treatment limitations and financial requirements.

Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, the subcommittee's top Republican, said the House bill would drive up costs of health insurance.

But Stephen Melek, an actuary with the firm Milliman, said his firm's analysis of the House bill estimated it would cause an increase of health insurance premiums of just 0.6 percent _ or $2.40 per member per month.