By Drew Armstrong and Alex Wayne, CQ Staff

With the financial bailout package shaping up as the last chance for enactment of mental health parity legislation this year, advocates of the parity measure have mounted an all-out lobbying effort to build support in the House for the overall package.

There appears to be no alternative strategy to move the parity measure, mainly because there is little time to execute one. Either or both chambers might convene for a post-election lame-duck session, but there is no guarantee lawmakers would carve out time then for a stand-alone parity bill.

“As a recovering alcoholic, I’ve got to take it one day at a time, and now I’m taking it one hour at a time,” said Jim Ramstad of Minnesota, the leading House GOP proponent of the measure.

The legislation would require private health insurers to offer mental health and addiction benefits equal in cost and scope to traditional medical benefits.

The addition of the popular parity bill to the Senate-passed package is unlikely to lead to many new House votes for the financial bailout — other than Ramstad’s, who voted against the initial bailout bill but said he will now vote for the Senate package.

“The inclusion of our mental health parity bill, major tax relief and bank deposit (FDIC) insurance increases caused me to reconsider my position,” Ramstad said. He also said he would encourage his GOP brethren who opposed the bailout earlier this week to change their vote, but Ramstad did not say that he expected parity to be a major factor in their decisions.

But even though parity isn’t much of a sweetener, a coalition of mental health advocacy organizations manned the phones Thursday in support of the Senate bill.

“This is as close as we’ve gotten over the past decade,” said Laurel Stine, director of federal relations at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. “This is it.”

The Mental Health Liaison Group, an umbrella organization for groups advocating mental health parity, sent an alert to more than 200 affiliated organizations across the country Thursday, asking them to place phone calls to the 51 House members who co-sponsored parity legislation (HR 1424) but voted against the bailout Sept. 29.

Neil Trautwein, top health care lobbyist at the National Retail Federation, said his group is asking its members, including large department stores such as Macy’s and Nordstrom, to encourage their employees to call their representatives and ask them to vote for the bill.

The federation is part of a coalition of mental health advocates and business groups who support mental health parity.

“I don’t know that we change anybody’s mind on this one provision on the big package,” Trautwein said. “But hopefully it becomes one more factor in their decision-making.”

Ramstad and Patrick J. Kennedy , D-R.I., chief sponsor of the original House bill, have worked together for years to advance the mental health parity bill, touring the country together to promote it. Kennedy’s father, Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy , has been a champion of the measure in the Senate, which passed its original mental health parity measure (S 558) on Sept. 18, 2007.