The New York Senate's "old white men," as one advocate put it yesterday, agreed to an insurance parity bill last night that does not include any mention of substance abuse.

The Timothy's Law campaign has issued a press release that is remarkably celebratory. Those on the front lines of the struggle were both exhausted by 18-hour days of wrangling and fearful that whatever measures had been agreed upon would blow apart if they did not agree to this watered-down compromise.

The legislation will save lives, and for that we are grateful. But the discrimination against people with the disease of addition continues, and the old white men aren't aren't just penny pinchers looking out for small business, as they like to portray themselves. They are easy prey for the insurance lobby that holds great sway — make that swag — in the legislature. They combine the dangerous mix of ignorance (both about the nature of addiction and the true cost of parity) and obstinance.

"A huge amount of education has to go on in the Senate," the advocate said.

To Deirdre and me, this was precisely the deal that our state senator, Nick Spano, who exerts a lot of power as assistant majority leader, suggested could be delivered when we visited his office in April. He said that we should take what we could get this year and agitate for more in the future.

We were told back then by representatives on the Timothy's Law Campaign that it was not enough, and we agreed.

We've been calling, faxing, buttonholing and emailing Spano for months, and know that many others have, too, urging that no bill be passed without a chemical dependency component. The one response I got personally was a form email. The only response that would have counted, of course, is a positive result.

"He not only didn't deliver," the advocate involved in the negotiations said. "He stayed out of it."

In contrast, a couple of month ago, Spano was front and center and all over the news in prodding both the Assembly speaker and the Senate leader to pass the state budget on time.

To be fair, the substance abuse lobby, with a few exceptions, stayed out of it, too. Compared to the mental health advocates, our presence was pitiful.

The Timothy's Law press release acknowledges that the agreement fell short on coverage for those with addiction and promised to "return in September when the Legislature is expected to fulfill its promise to pass Timothy’s Law."

The Republicans hold a five-seat majority in the Senate. An article in the Journal News recently indicated that they were expected to hold on to that edge in the November elections despite the strong showing expected by Democratic candidates for other statewide and federal (Hilary) offices. Ironically, a lot of the power of the Republicans derives from upstate communities whose population is swelled by downstate prisoners who not only cannot vote but also aren't counted as residents of their home districts. Doubly ironic is the fact that the majority of them are doing time under the state's draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws.

The imperative now becomes to vote the most vulnerable Republicans out of office, presumably starting with Spano. A softball jersey with the number 18 hangs prominently behind his desk. Eighteen is the number of votes by which he won his last election.

"Ah, but not so fast," a voice in the back of my head keeps telling me. "Politics is the art of getting things done. Perhaps Spano is the guy to educate his peers."

The only way I'll listen to that voice, however, is if Spano gets in front of this issue in the coming weeks and articulates — loudly and clearly — a concrete plan to personally deliver a chemical dependency component to the parity legislation in 2007.