COLUMBUS — With support from both House Speaker Jon Husted and Senate President Bill Harris, the legislature appears poised to pass legislation requiring health insurance plans to offer coverage for biologically-based mental illnesses on the same terms as coverage for physical diseases and disorders.

However, Gov. Bob Taft still has concerns about health care mandates and how they could compromise the state's ability to attract business, said Mark Rickel, Taft's spokesman. Taft has not decided whether he would veto the legislation if it reaches his desk, Rickel said.

State Sen. Robert Spada, R-North Royalton, sponsor of the bill in the Senate, said it's been a 20-year effort to achieve mental health coverage parity. Spada's son James, a senior credit analyst with the Bank of America, who has been diagnosed as bipolar with mixed episodes of depression and mania, testified in favor of the bill before House and Senate committees this week. Ohio would become the 38th state to require parity, Spada said.

In his prepared testimony, James Spada said, "I am here today in order to show that success and mental illness can go together, if given the correct amount of attention, support and care."

Husted, R-Kettering, said that through conversations he believes backers of the bill have been able to "neutralize" some concerns businesses have about it.

"When we last had a thorough discussion of mental health parity Ohio was losing jobs and we had to get a few things done to get the economy going," Husted said.

The bill includes a provision that would remove the requirement that an insurer provide equal benefits under certain conditions. One condition would be showing that claims for mental illness incurred over six months could justify an increase of more than 1 percent in annual premiums or rates charged for coverage of other physical diseases and disorders.

Ty Pine, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business-Ohio, which represents about 36,000 small businesses, said the bill would "increase costs and reduce flexibility and those are not things our members support."

State Rep. Jon Peterson, R-Delaware, sponsor of the bill in the House, said the state cannot impose the parity requirement in the bill on self-insured employers who employ about two-thirds of Ohio workers. Many of those employers provide coverage with mental health parity, Peterson said.

Maggie Ostrowski, spokeswoman for Senate President Harris, R-Ashland, said that a the bill could go before the full Senate next week. The House is expected to act after the Senate.

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.