Pete Domenici: “I rise today to offer the Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act of 2001 as amendment to the fiscal year 2002 Labor-HHS…”

“I rise today to offer the Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act of 2001 as amendment to the fiscal year 2002 Labor-HHS bill. I am joined by my friend and partner in this endeavor, Senator Wellstone. We are well aware of many of the arguments that will be made against our amendment. For instance, while the nation is rightly focused on recovering from the trauma and damage inflicted on September 11, it would be wrong to overlook this important issue because it is simply the right course of action to undertake. We are well past the time to act on extending and building on the federal mental health parity law that expired on September 30. Others will argue that our amendment costs too much. However, CBO has scored our bill as costing less than one percent 0.9 percent and again passing this bill is long overdue and the right thing do for the millions of Americans suffering from a mental illness. The number of Americans suffering from a mental illness or the number of family members affected by a mental illness has not magically decreased over the past couple of months. We are ready for a vigorous debate on a host of issues, but I would like to begin by saying: Our bill has 64 bipartisan cosponsors; the HELP Committee reported out the bill on August 1 by a vote of 21-0; 144 organizations support the bill; and CBO has scored the bill as raising insurance premiums by 0.9 percent.”