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WASHINGTON — Sen. Pete Domenici is a big step closer to guaranteeing that Americans covered under major insurance plans will pay no more for depression or bipolar treatment than they would for cancer, diabetes or a skin rash treatment.

The Senate on Tuesday night by voice vote approved legislation by the Albuquerque Republican and Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, to make the country's main insurance companies keep co-payments and deductibles and the number of allowed visits the same for patients whether they seek help with a physical or a mental illness.

The bill, which now goes to the House, would apply to employee health plans at companies with 51 or more employees. About 113 million Americans are covered by these plans.

The insurance companies would not have to offer any mental health benefits, but if they do, the coverage has to be the same as for other illnesses.

About one in four American adults suffers from a diagnosable mental illness each year and one in 17 suffers from a serious mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

More than 30,000 people commit suicide in the United States each year, noted Domenici in a Senate floor statement and 16 percent of all inmates in state and local jails suffer from a mental illness.

Domenici has long sought changes in mental health services following his daughter's diagnosis with mental health issues.

Domenici and allies passed the first step toward mental health parity in 1996 by prohibiting insurance companies from imposing lower annual limits on the payments for mental health coverage than for other illnesses.

But four years later, congressional investigators determined that 87 percent of insurance companies were erecting other cost barriers to mental health treatments. Attempts to close the loopholes were thwarted in Congress but 34 states passed some form of parity legislation.