The Senate passed the first major mental health legislation in nearly a decade Wednesday, sending the 21st Century Cures Act to President Barack Obama, who has promised to sign it.
The Senate voted 94 to 5 to approve the act, which sailed through the House of Representatives last week, Kaiser Health News reports.
Although the 21st Century Cures Act has been championed as a way to speed up drug development, it also includes provisions aimed at improving mental health care for millions of Americans and fighting the opioid epidemic.
“It is time to fix our broken mental health care system,” says Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician whose mental health bill was folded into the 21st Century Cures Act.
Advocates have described the legislation as the most significant piece of mental health legislation since the 2008 law requiring equal insurance coverage for mental and physical health.
The new legislation places a strong emphasis on science, pushing federal agencies to fund only programs backed by solid research and to collect data on whether patients are actually helped. The bill strengthens laws mandating parity for mental and physical health care and includes grants to increase the number of psychologists and psychiatrists, who are in short supply across the country.
The bill, which combines mental health proposals from several lawmakers, also pushes states to provide early intervention for psychosis, a treatment program that has been hailed as one of the most promising mental health developments in decades.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut., who worked with Cassidy on the bill, says he hopes to alleviate the suffering of people with serious mental illness. But Rep. Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey, says he’s concerned that proposed Republican changes to the health care system could undercut any progress made by the bill.
Millions of Americans with mental illness could lose coverage if Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act or cuts spending on Medicaid, which pays for about 25% of all mental health care, he says.
