After debating the issue for a decade or more, Congress last week passed legislation that will advance the idea of parity for mental health illnesses, requiring that mental health issues be treated similar to other ailments.

The House and Senate approved a compromise bill on mental health parity that requires employers who offer mental health benefits to structure those benefits so that they are similar to benefits for other illnesses. It's common for companies who do offer mental health benefits to require a higher co-pay for mental health treatment than is required for treatment of other kinds of illnesses.

On the same front, earlier last week Congress approved a Medicare measure that, in addition to blocking planned reimbursement cuts to doctors, also lowers co-pays for mental health services to 20 percent from 50 percent. The 20 percent figure is standard for treatment of most forms of illness or injury.

Parity for mental health treatment has been a controversial topic for years, pitting mental health advocates against those worried about the potential for adding costs to health care coverage. But with careful monitoring to ensure against abuse, providing more access to mental health services could actually reduce overall health care costs — if people have more access to care, that keeps them healthier and more productive at work.

Another black eye for Pennsylvania's efforts to introduce slot machine gambling occurred last week when Don Barden, the winner of the bid to build a casino in Pittsburgh, announced that financial troubles would force him to turn over control of the $780 million project to a group formed by Chicago-based billionaire Neil Bluhm.Bluhm is an owner of the casino planned for Philadelphia, and the prospect of his involvement in Pittsburgh's casino has some people worried about a concentration of too much power and influence, particularly when it comes to the state legislature. But because his involvement is partially through trusts, which were not addressed when state lawmakers crafted the provision in the slot machine gambling law that prohibits the owner of one casino in the state from owning more than one-third of another casino, there is nothing to prevent the move.Barden claims that lawsuits by the losing bidders for the Pittsburgh casino license and, more recently, troubles in the financial markets have caused him to default on a $200 million bridge loan. And that is what forced him to turn over control to outside investors.But critics of the way in which the state Gaming Control Board has handled matters related to slots licenses suggest Barden's financial capability was not fully vetted during the license application process.The same state Gaming Control Board that gave Barden the Pittsburgh license also awarded a license in the Poconos to Scranton businessman Louis DeNaples, who is under indictment for lying to state officials about his alleged connections to organized crime.Curiously, DeNaples received the license despite having pleaded guilty in 1978 for his role in defrauding the federal government of some $500,000 for cleanup work following Hurricane Agnes.Commentators have noted that DeNaples' criminal record fell just outside the limit in the state's gambling law that was written to allow a felon to own a casino, so long as any criminal conviction was at least 15 years old. It also has been noted that DeNaples had been a generous contributor to politicians, particularly Democrats in the state Senate.The sad saga of legalized gambling in Pennsylvania continues — and it's only getting started.

The goal of improved efficiency in the collection of taxes in Pennsylvania advanced early this month when Gov. Ed Rendell signed a bill that will consolidate collection of the earned-income tax from 560 tax collectors down to just 69, one for each county, except Allegheny County, which will have four collectors. There will be no change in Philadelphia, where tax collection is already centralized.The consolidation plan recently approved by the General Assembly was prompted by a study by the state Department of Community and Economic Development that found that the current tax-collection system failed to collect some $230 million a year, out of $2 billion billed. The amount of money left uncollected has been called "leakage."If consolidation of collection of the earned-income tax, which is scheduled to take effect in 2012, lives up to expectations for greater efficiency, then state lawmakers should put together a similar plan that addresses the current antiquated and inefficient system of using some 2,500 elected tax collectors to collect property taxes across the state. If the leakage from the earned-income tax is $230 million, the leakage from the inefficient collection of some $20 billion in property taxes could be close to $1 billion.That's a serious amount of money— money that should be going to school districts and municipalities, not leaking from an outdated and inefficient tax-collection system.