In Wake of Another Mass Shooting, Let's Talk About America's Dangerously Gutted Mental Healthcare...

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Lynn Stuart Parramore

In the Wake of Another Mass Shooting, Let's Talk About America's Dangerously Gutted Mental Healthcare System
The Right’s program for public safety: Everyone should have a gun and few should get adequate mental healthcare.

December 14, 2012 |


The scene has replayed itself over and over -- in Tucson, at Virginia Tech, at Columbine. On Friday in Connecticut, another unstable man has taken innocent lives in a burst of terrifying violence.

Inadequate gun control is only one half of the story. The other is the shameful job America does of treating the mentally ill. Today, 45 million American adults suffer from mental illness. Eleven million of those cases are considered serious. Most of these people are not dangerous, but if they can’t get treatment, the odds of potential violence increase.

Yet the mentally ill are finding it increasingly difficult to get help. Mental health funding has been plummeting for decades. Since 2009, states have cut billions for mental health from their budgets. As Daniel Lippman has reported in the Huffington Post:

Across the country, states facing severe financial shortfalls have cut at least $4.35 billion in public mental health spending from 2009 to 2012, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD). It's the largest reduction in funding since de-institutionalization in the 1960s and '70s. In fiscal year 2012 alone, 31 states that gave their numbers to the association reported cutting more than $840 million.

Thanks to the misguided austerity policies embraced by conservatives, more people are falling through the cracks. There are not enough psychiatric beds, treatment services or community support programs. Medication is expensive, and insurance companies routinely leave patients inadequately covered (the Affordable Care Act will hopefully address this problem by finally putting psychiatric illnesses on par with other health issues). ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/wake-another-mass-shooting-lets-talk-about-americas-dangerously-gutted-mental

[indepat]

1. In this age of terra and limited resources, does anyone out there actually think there is money for

butter (adequate mental health resources) considering the threat from foreign terraists and the many fancy guns (sophisticated weapons systems needed to blow the foreign terraists away)?

[MichiganVote]

2. This is the crux of the problem. We DO NOT care for the mentally ill.

While our government plays war, we become the hapless victims in Russian Roulette by the seriously mentally ill.

[Marrah_G]

3. We desperately need to have this conversation as a society

Especially in the case of young adults. Once they hit 18 parents can do nothing unless they are so debilitated that the parent can get them committed by the courts.

[Fumesucker]

4. It's not "gutted" because it was never there to start with

America has never had anything remotely resembling a decent mental health care system.