Equal funds for mentally ill at issue.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - It's a matter of fairness to treat depression the same way cancer is treated.

But it's also a matter of higher costs for medical coverage.

Those were the dueling messages delivered Thursday at a crowded legislative hearing on a bill requiring insurance companies to cover treatment for alcohol and drug abuse and mental illness at the same levels they cover treatment for physical ailments.

With more people - medical providers, advocates for the mentally ill, business people and families - signed up to testify than time would allow, Senate Health Policy Chairman Bill Morrisette, D-Springfield, said he would continue the public hearing on Senate Bill 1 on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.

One of the few people with a personal experience in dealing with limited medical coverage for mental illness, Joyce Van Anne of Ashland told lawmakers her insurance company dragged its feet in covering mental-health services for her family.

Van Anne's 12-year-old son, Ben, has attention deficit hyperactive disorder and a bipolar disorder. Son Noah, 6, also has been diagnosed with ADHD and an anxiety disorder. Van Anne said it took nearly six years to have her son's disorders diagnosed and treated, despite the signs of problems she recognized, thanks to her training and experience as a teacher with a master's degree in special education.

"I firmly believe that this delay was the result of our private insurance company's unwillingness to provide adequately for the diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions," she said, noting that her son received services only after he wrote a good-bye note and put a metal key into a light socket.

"People tend to sit up and take notice when an 8-year-old tries to commit suicide," she said.

Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, past president of the Oregon Psychiatric Association and current medical director of psychiatric services at Salem Hospital, said rapid scientific advances are revolutionizing the medical system's ability to diagnose and treat mental illnesses. That makes it all the more frustrating that the insurance industry continues to cap coverage of mental-health treatment more restrictively than it does physical health care.

"Our brain, like any other organ of our body, deserves equal civil rights," she said.

Insurance officials, who have spent years arguing against legislative mandates to expand medical coverage, said the current economic climate and rising medical costs make such a proposal an especially acute hardship.

"People are losing private health-care coverage in Oregon because their employers and the employees cannot afford to put enough money together to pay the premiums," said John Powell, lobbyist for Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon.

His company offered a revamped version that would allow companies to submit mental-health treatment claims to doctors and administrators to determine whether they were "medically necessary" - a process that medical treatment claims normally undergo.

But even if the Legislature adopts the changes, Powell said his company would lobby for the bill's defeat because of higher costs.

One of the bill's sponsors, Sen. Lenn Hannon, R-Ashland, derided such concerns. He noted that the Public Employees Benefit Board, which covers 50,000 state workers, including legislators, has for several years provided equal coverage levels for both mental and physical health treatment.

He said the expanded coverage has increased premium costs only by an estimated 1 percent or less, which "doesn't exactly bankrupt anyone that I'm aware of."

A similar bill was taken up in the 1999 Legislature.

The version that passed stopped short of achieving the "parity" that advocates were seeking.

Instead, the compromise version four years ago required insurers to expand by 25 percent coverage of treatment for mental illness and alcohol and drug abuse - meaning that coverage would max out at $13,125 for adults and at $15,625 for children compared with up to $10,500 for adults and $12,500 for children.

NEXT HEARING

The public can testify on Senate Bill 1 at its next hearing on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in Salem in the Capitol's Hearing Room B. For more information, call [phone]