ALBANY - Tom O'Clair's long fight against the insurance industry may be nearing an end with an agreement late Friday by the Legislature to support what would be called Timothy's Law.
O'Clair wants to require insurance companies in New York to provide mental health coverage. His inspiration has been his 12-year-old son, Timothy, who killed himself in 2001. Timothy's parents had to give up custody so he could get public-funded treatment for emotional problems.
“We don't have the money the insurance industry has, that's what we face ... that's extremely frustrating,” the Schenectady man said Friday night as he waited to see if sympathy and promises would turn into a deal between the Senate and Assembly.
The deal was struck after the Assembly left at the end of the regular 2006 session, but the Assembly is expected to return to Albany to approve the Senate bill.
The bill includes $50 million to help small businesses pay for the added coverage, addressing a concern that coverage would be too burdensome for business and force more workers to lose their insurance.
The measure then will go to Gov. George Pataki.
“I look at it this way, if someone had done this before, I wouldn't have to do this,” O'Clair said.
In other action:
-The Senate voted to override Pataki's veto of a bill that would have allowed more than 50,000 home day care providers to unionize as state employees.
The bill classifies day care providers who receive government subsidies as public employees for the purpose of collective bargaining on matters of wages, benefits and work conditions.
Pataki said the measure would have jeopardized $315 million in federal block grant funding for child care programs.
-The Legislature passed “Craig's Law,” which levels serious prison time for anyone who leads police on a car chase in which an officer is hurt or killed.
-The Senate approved a bill that would prohibit mentally ill inmates from being placed in solitary confinement “special housing units” in state prisons. Such inmates would be placed in residential mental health treatment programs that would be part of the prison or in other clinically appropriate programs.
AP-ES-06-24-06 1123EDT
“We don't have the money the insurance industry has, that's what we face ... that's extremely frustrating,” the Schenectady man said Friday night as he waited to see if sympathy and promises would turn into a deal between the Senate and Assembly.
The deal was struck after the Assembly left at the end of the regular 2006 session, but the Assembly is expected to return to Albany to approve the Senate bill.
The bill includes $50 million to help small businesses pay for the added coverage, addressing a concern that coverage would be too burdensome for business and force more workers to lose their insurance.
The measure then will go to Gov. George Pataki.
“I look at it this way, if someone had done this before, I wouldn't have to do this,” O'Clair said.
In other action:
-The Senate voted to override Pataki's veto of a bill that would have allowed more than 50,000 home day care providers to unionize as state employees.
The bill classifies day care providers who receive government subsidies as public employees for the purpose of collective bargaining on matters of wages, benefits and work conditions.
Pataki said the measure would have jeopardized $315 million in federal block grant funding for child care programs.
-The Legislature passed “Craig's Law,” which levels serious prison time for anyone who leads police on a car chase in which an officer is hurt or killed.
-The Senate approved a bill that would prohibit mentally ill inmates from being placed in solitary confinement “special housing units” in state prisons. Such inmates would be placed in residential mental health treatment programs that would be part of the prison or in other clinically appropriate programs.
AP-ES-06-24-06 1123EDT
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