Legislative News......
House, Senate reach agreement on policy framework for mental-health parity legislation.

In continuing coverage from previous editions of NAHU Newswire, the Wall Street Journal (7/11, A3, Zhang, Fuhrmans) reports that "the House and Senate reached agreement on a policy framework for legislation that would require employers and health insurers to put mental-health coverage on par with that for physical maladies." Final "[d]etails of the agreement are expected to be set this week." Meanwhile, lawmakers are "seeking funding for the measure, which would cost the government an estimated $1.3 billion over five years, and $3.4 billion over 10 years." Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), among others, "hope[s] to push the bill through Congress and send it to the White House by the end of July." The measure, "which has broad bipartisan backing, has support among business groups, insurance companies, and mental-health advocates. Supporters say the legislation, more than 15 years in the making, would affect the mental-health coverage of 113 million people, including 82 million people in federally regulated plans funded by employers and 31 million people in state-regulated plans."