WASHINGTON - Aided by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, insurance companies successfully have blocked legislation to make them provide equal coverage for mental and physical illnesses if their policies include both. President Bush endorsed the concept two years ago. Today, supporters of the bill are willing to settle for a scaled-back version they hope Congress will pass in 2004.
The original legislation has 69 sponsors in the Senate and 246 sponsors in the House, clear majorities in both chambers. It was named for late Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Minnesota Democrat who championed the issue for years.
Hastert, however, has declined to schedule a House vote. In the Senate, Republicans blocked an attempt to win passage last fall, on the one-year anniversary of Wellstone's death in a plane crash.
"The bottom line is there is still enormous resistance from employers and health plans, and they've been able to turn to allies in the Senate and especially the House," said Andrew Sperling, a lobbyist for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
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