Parity, genetic privacy bills face snags

Conflict between the House and Senate mental health parity legislation poses a problem, while one senator's concerns hamper a genetic protection measure.

By Doug Trapp, AMNews staff. Feb. 25, 2008.

Washington -- Bills to protect Americans from misuse of their genetic information and to prevent discrimination in mental health benefits attracted broad support last year but still face a tough road this year because of unresolved disputes.

Both the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2007 and the House and Senate mental health parity bills have an array of co-sponsors and support. All of the measures, except the House mental parity measure, were approved by one chamber of Congress last year.

The success of either legislative effort this year could come down to how quickly lawmakers begin work on them. Nicholas Meyers, director of government relations for the American Psychiatric Assn., said speed is going to be a key in the push for greater mental health parity protection. "My gut tells me the longer this goes on, the more difficult it gets to do it."

Mental health parity legislation could advance along two main pathways. House lawmakers could adopt their stronger version and force the Senate into a conference committee to negotiate the differences between the two bills. Or House lawmakers could pass the Senate bill, which would send the legislation to President Bush.

The Senate passed its carefully negotiated bill, the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007, unanimously in September 2007 after more than a year of negotiations between insurance and business associations, issue advocates and three key senators.