In the decades since then, Kennedy’s vision has been distorted beyond recognition. Psychiatric wards were empty, there were no plans to admit patients and there was little funding for community care. Mental health coverage was not a priority when it was created in 1965. Medicaid and Medicare. Although prescription psychosis provided relief for some patients, without compassionate rehabilitation, mending broken hearts proved difficult.
Today, too many Americans in need of medical care are dying prematurely and languishing in cells, on the streets, and in hospital hallways. Half a million people with severe mental illness are incarcerated or homeless, the highest number in the asylum population before Kennedy’s assassination. Suicide is main cause of death.Poor mental health costs the economy $47.6 billion Productivity is lost every year. The pandemic has traumatized young people.
A crisis of this magnitude requires a proportionate response. Patrick J. Kennedy, Kennedy’s nephew, appears. The former congressman is leading a movement to ensure everyone has access to proper mental health care.
“It’s a scandal that in this wealthy country, so many of our fellow citizens are dying like dogs on the streets. This should be an indictment on all of us and our political system,” he told Progress in Boston last week. He spoke at the launch of a public-private partnership called Coordination for. “This is no longer the province of the mental health community. This is the province of all of us.”
Mental health and addiction care advocates packed the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for the event, sharing ideas with venture capitalists, philanthropists, and Biden administration leaders, and expressing rare optimism. I felt like.
White House Domestic Policy Director Neera Tanden, Assistant Secretary of Labor Lisa Gomez, and the directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Mental Health also attended. “We’re trying to get the word out that people have rights and that insurance companies have obligations to people,” Gomez told me.
The cause is personal to Kennedy, who proudly has been sober for 12 years. During the 2008 economic collapse, Congress ensured that a relief package included a bill that would prohibit insurance companies from making behavioral care less available than physical care.
The cause was personal to President Kennedy as well. His father secretly authorized a lobotomy, and Rosemary was institutionalized, unable to walk or speak.
And the cause is personal to most Americans.1 in 2 of us experience Mental disorders that occur during our lifetime, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, etc. Many people will continue to be stigmatized and treated as criminals because of their circumstances.
This is why Coordination for Progress is calling on leaders in the public and private sectors to be ambitious. By 2033, it wants 90% of people to be tested for mental illness and substance use disorders. 90% of people screened to receive evidence-based services. And 90 percent of them have manageable symptoms.Currently, only 60% of people If you need some kind of care.
This 90-90-90 strategy is modeled after the fight against HIV.time united nations Set similar goals In 2014, we will galvanize global investment, research and action. changed the flow About AIDS, which is prevalent in many places.
Are there such benefits for mental illness in America?
Considering how the medical system was transformed during the coronavirus outbreak, there is hope that this will happen. Leaders of mental health advocacy groups held weekly calls to coordinate requests for coronavirus relief funds. The insurance company covered telemedicine. Investors poured in billions of dollars To mental health technology. Philanthropists support efforts Stop the de facto criminalization of mental illness and addiction.government approved unprecedented expense About prevention and care.
To build on this momentum, the Kennedy Forum Advocacy Group has developed the following brief. Over 200 policy recommendations. For example, expanding the child tax credit would reduce the stress of poverty for children. Requiring all insurance companies to cover treatment of the first symptoms of mental illness can help prevent mental illness from becoming a chronic illness.
Our partners also help launch campaigns by analyzing data. The McKinsey Institute for Health Research has mapped out the systems needed to overhaul mental health care, from housing to justice. His audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG has built a database of insurance claims, health infrastructure and census information by zip code. Track treatment disparities and the effects of policies and investments.
An even more powerful tool is unity. This eliminates the need for groups to compete for finite resources. to start, over 70 I have been committed to the cause of the Alliance. “Advocacy has been ineffective because there hasn’t been an overarching goal like cancer, AIDS, or heart disease,” said Harsh Trivedi, president of Shepard Pratt, the nation’s largest private nonprofit mental health provider. do.
Ensuring everyone’s right to good mental health requires a different kind of investment. President Kennedy saw it 60 years ago. We have a chance to get it done because his nephew is pulling everyone in the same direction.
