Editorial: Act now on mental-health bills
Legislature’s talk hasn’t translated to much action this session.
What’s the difference between the Florida Legislature and a used-car salesman? The hideous plaid jacket. Otherwise, halfway through this year’s session, state lawmakers seem intent on perpetrating somet s h e i p ng ia decidedly more distasteful on Floridians expecting broad mental-health reforms. Yep: pulling a bait and switch. In February, chatter among lawmakers raised expectations among advocates and sufferers that succor was near for a state that ranks 49th nationally for funding mental health.
“This could be the year that mental health gets the spotlight,” Sen. Aaron Bean, a Fernandina Beach Republican, said then.
There’s truth there. Lawmakers introduced 22 mental-healthrelated bills so far — more than in the last seven years, advocates say. Still, lawmakers might as well have sold Floridians a bill of goods given those bills’ lack of progress.
Dissension between the chambers has created inertia.
A comprehensive reform bill has moved in the Senate, yet might be sunk by the weight of too many parts. The House, meanwhile, is considering a different bill, which will make reconciling the measures more difficult.
Similarly, the Senate backs a variation on Medicaid expansion — which mental-health advocates deem critical to helping people languishing with psychiatric issues among the state’s 800,000 or so uninsured. The House’s answer? Talk to the hand.
Sadly, finding unison seems as likely as finding a vehicle on a used-car lot driven rarely by a little old lady from Pasadena.
In one of the few agreements, both chambers have pitched using for-profit companies to oversee the psychiatric safety net. But that prospect rightly worries advocates, considering the current nonprofit system seems to be working fine.
Another worthy measure to expand specialized mental-health courts that practice diversion not incarceration for nonviolent offenders with mental-health problems hasn’t gained traction in the Senate; nor is it on the House radar. We’re shaking our heads.
Even something as relatively cheap ($300,000) and necessary as a “Mental Health First Aid” education program in state schools, which would educate students on the issues and the resources, has passed Senate committees, while the House version collects dust.
As it stands, the measure with the best shot of passing would tackle the alleged abuse of state inmates chronicled in a Miami Herald investigative series. This might be through mandatory mental-health training for corrections officers, enhanced penalties or tracking of excessive force.
It’s sorely necessary, yet far short of the comprehensive change Floridians expect — and desperately need. Like promising a Ferrari and delivering a Pinto.
A legislative breakdown now on the road to major reform would be unacceptable.
Given the inertia, perhaps we ought to don the ol’ plaid coat before lawmakers walk out of the legislative showroom: