Kennedy

WASHINGTON — On a strong bipartisan vote in committee, U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy’s bill to improve medical coverage of mental illness was cleared for full House action as early as the end of this month.

On a 32-to-13 vote, the Energy and Commerce Committee passed the legislation, which would require insurers to cover mental illness and alcohol and drug abuse on the same footing as they cover other ailments.

The panel defeated a series of Republican amendments generally aimed at bringing the bill closer to the Senate-passed version, which is less specific in its instructions to the medical business about how to achieve “parity” of insurance coverage between mental illness and physical illness.

“There must have been a similar debate at the kitchen table between the senator and the congressman — both by the name of Kennedy,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J. Pallone referred to the fact that Patrick Kennedy’s father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., is one of the chief authors of the bill that cleared the Senate last month.

“I’m just thrilled about how this thing is going,” Representative Kennedy said during a break in yesterday’s debate — the sixth such legislative drafting session in a series of House committees and subcommittees that share jurisdiction over medical insurance issues.

Kennedy said the votes against Republican amendments inspired by the Senate bill “put us in a really strong position going into conference,” meaning the House-Senate legislative panel that would work out a compromise between the conflicting versions of the measure.

Republicans warned, however, that the Patrick Kennedy bill, coauthored by Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., would drive up costs and drive insurance companies away from mental-health coverage, frustrating the intent of the bill.

Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., said the Senate bill, a compromise accepted by leaders of the medical, insurance and mental-health lobbies, would give the health industry the tools to hold down costs.

Kennedy said in an interview that some cost-cutting tools are actually methods of denying coverage to sick people.

On a 38-20 vote, largely along party lines, the panel rejected Wilson’s amendment to substitute much of the Senate bill for the Kennedy-Ramstad bill.

On the final vote, five Republicans were among the majority of 32 who recommended full House passage of the measure.

jmulligan@belo-dc.com