Senators to offer another bill addressing mental health crisis
Two senators are expected this week to offer the latest in a growing pile of bills in Congress aimed at what many see as a national mental health treatment crisis.
Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) are set to introduce a bill to make behavioral healthcare more available to people with mental illness and substance-abuse problems. It would create a new HHS assistant secretary for mental health and substance abuse to encourage more professionals to enter the field and promote research, according to Politico. Last month, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) introduced a House version of the bill.
The legislation comes as jails, prisons and general hospitals are becoming crowded with people suffering from untreated mental illnesses and addictions because of the shortage of community-based and residential treatment facilities. Local and state governments have cut funding for these programs for many years. Experts say greater awareness and more treatment resources might have prevented some of the mass shootings in recent years.
Last week, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced a bill that supports suicide-prevention programs and integrating behavioral-health and primary-care services. At the same time, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have signaled that they will seek broad criminal justice sentencing reform, which some experts say needs to be accompanied by more resources for treating inmates’ behavioral-health conditions.
“You can’t have any effective reform of prisons and jails without including mental illness,” said John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center.