Two bills to provide drug and alcohol treatment introduced in Senate

Tuesday, June 3, 1997 | 11:32 a.m.

SB428 by Sen. Jack Regan, D-Las Vegas, would mandate that health insurance benefits cover treatment programs.

SB432 by Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, would set up a major program in the state's prison system and make aftercare a condition of parole to keep ex-felons straight.

Regan said the bill is supported by Dorothy North, head of the state's substance abuse commission. Instead of requiring health insurance plans provide up to $1,500 a year for withdrawal treatments and counseling up to $2,500 a year, it makes those figures the minimum benefit required of health plan providers.

And it states that the decision whether a client is entitled to benefits "must be made by a counselor or a physician, physician's assistant, registered nurse or licensed practical nurse who is certified to make such a determination."

That section is aimed at complaints that an increasing number of benefits decisions are being made by non-medical people within health plan companies who do so based on finances rather than health concerns.

Wiener said her bill is still awaiting a fiscal note from the Department of Prisons but that Prison director Bob Bayer has been a supporter of alcohol and drug treatment programs in the past.

She said estimates are more than 80 percent of those in the nation's prisons suffer from some form of substance addiction. She said that is borne out by her own experience as a volunteer teacher in southern Nevada prisons for more than two years.

She argued providing a strong drug and alcohol treatment program in the prisons would save the state money by keeping many inmates from ever coming back.

Wiener said creating a "therapeutic community" that separates prisoners in the substance abuse program from other inmates gives them the chance for treatment to work and shouldn't cost that much money because it wouldn't mean new facilities, just moving the participating inmates together.

She said whatever the price tag, it would be repaid many times by reducing the number of those returning and by the benefits to society of reducing crime.