Steve Buyer: “I support the Senate-passed version of the mental health parity legislation. It was carefully crafted between mental…”

“I support the Senate-passed version of the mental health parity legislation. It was carefully crafted between mental health groups and business groups. And everyone should note that not all of the mental advocacy groups support this House language. They see some dangers in it. In particular, in the bill that we are discussing, employers are allowed to drop their mental health benefits, and there is great concern that employers in fact will do that because of the overly broad coverage mandates as specified in the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual which is included in this bill. The American people must know that the bill before the House today, again, is not supported universally by mental health advocacy groups as the Senate bill is. Heather Wilson offered an amendment in the committee; it was defeated. I am very disappointed that no amendments were offered in the Rules Committee. This is, once again, shutting down the democratic process of this House. I don't know what you have to fear. I am really concerned about that. I am also concerned about the pay-fors for this. To substantially increase the Medicaid prescription drug rebate as one of the offsets, this significant increase could have a detrimental impact, because when you increase these rebates, there is going to be a cost shift, and that cost shift is going to have a depreciative effect. The effect will be you will increase the price on premiums, you will have an increased price of drugs on someone else.”