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House Healthcare committee rejects amendment to remove 'behavioral health' from S27 definition
Summary
A House Healthcare committee voted 6–5 to reject Representative Anne Donohue’s amendment to strike the term “behavioral health” from the definition in bill S27, after members debated whether the term is vague, stigmatizing or necessary to prevent coverage gaps in a medical-debt bill.
Representative Anne Donohue offered an amendment to S27 on April 15 to remove the phrase “behavioral health” from the bill’s definition, arguing the term is vague and stigmatizing and not needed for the statute’s protections.
Donohue said the amendment would “strike the term behavioral health from the definition,” and told the committee she had reviewed federal and clinical sources including the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and found no gap that would require the umbrella term. “All of the evidence is there is nothing under the sun that is not captured by one of those terms,” she said, referring to categories such as medical services and mental health and substance use disorder services.
The measure prompted back-and-forth among committee members about possible unintended consequences. One committee member, speaking from experience with credit reporting, said the bill’s focus is protecting people from the decisions of credit reporting and collection entities and urged the committee to “keep our eyes on the bill’s intent itself.” Another member who identified clinical concerns acknowledged the term’s problems but said leaving it in might help communicate with payers and other outside stakeholders who use that language.
Members also discussed the ICD-10 diagnostic categories, which group “mental, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental disorders,” and whether behavioral codes could be interpreted by creditors as nonmedical. Donohue cited ICD usage and federal guidance from agencies such as CMS and SAMHSA to argue that services described as “behavioral health” are already captured under medical or mental health and substance use categories.
After discussion, the committee took a voice/straw poll and then a roll call result. The amendment authored by Representative Donohue was found not favorable by a vote of 6–5–0 and therefore failed. The clerk announced, “The amendment not favorable in a vote of 6 5 0.”
The committee’s debate made clear the distinction between clinical nomenclature and how credit reporting entities might interpret billing language. Several members said they supported removing stigmatizing language in clinical contexts, but were concerned about opening the bill to outside interpretation by creditors. No formal direction to staff or follow-up assignment was recorded during this segment.
