Mental health advocates dare to believe in Congress

While lawmakers may agree enough on mental health reform issues to get a bill through Congress this session, the challenge of paying for it could still kill the effort.

Several bipartisan bills introduced in the House and Senate address behavioral health. They are quite similar and avoid controversies that derailed reform last session, said Paul Gionfriddo, president and CEO of Mental Health America. “We think all of the momentum is in place,” he said.

This month, Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) announced the Mental Health Reform Act of 2015, a companion bill to a revised House bill brought forth last month by Reps. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas).

The Senate version, which is supported by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the American Psychiatric Association, creates a new assistant secretary position within HHS to oversee federal mental health services. It also promotes early intervention, offers state grants for integration of behavioral and physical health programs and modifies privacy regulations in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to clarify when information can be shared with caregivers and parents about mental health patients.

Chuck Ingoglia, senior vice president of public policy and practice improvement at the National Center for Behavioral Health, said it's not clear how much time the Senate will find for addressing mental health, and there are still questions of how to finance grants and new programs.