Dave Camp: “This debate is not really about who's for or against mental health parity, it's about doing mental health parity in the…”

“This debate is not really about who's for or against mental health parity, it's about doing mental health parity in the right way. The Senate unanimously passed a mental health parity bill last year, and there, Senators Kennedy, Domenici and Enzi worked in a bipartisan way and brought all affected parties together to reach a compromise that mental health groups, employers and health plans fully support. What has really not been answered in the debate today, and I don't fully understand, is why put the entire DSM-IV manual in statute. It's a diagnostic code. It's not for coverage decisions on health benefits. That question has never really been fully answered. Let's do the sensible thing. Let's vote this bill down and adopt the Senate bill. We can have a mental health parity bill on the President's desk by the end of the month if we followed this procedure. So I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.”