Alexander, Murray, Cassidy, Murphy Introduce Plan to Address Mental Health Crisis in America

Senate health committee members release staff discussion draft to help Americans suffering from mental health and substance abuse disorders by ensuring mental health agency embraces innovation, gives states flexibility to meet need, and improves access to care

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 7 – A bipartisan group of Senate health committee members, including the Chairman and Ranking Member, today announced their plan to address the country’s mental health crisis and ensure Americans suffering from mental illness and substance abuse disorders receive the care they need.

The bipartisan draft legislation works to bring our mental health care system into the 21^st Century by embracing mental health research and innovation, giving states the flexibility they need to meet the needs of those suffering, and improving access to care.

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(Shortly after publishing CRAZY: A Father’s Journey Through America’s Mental Health Madness, I spent several weeks with Gunther Stern at Georgetown Ministries in Washington D.C. because I wanted to write a book about homelessness. But my editor at the time rebuffed it, explaining that no one wanted to read about persons with mental illnesses who lived on the streets. I was thrilled yesterday when Theresa Vargas at the Washington Post published a profile of Gunther and his tirelessly efforts to help the “invisible” who roam our streets.”)

In Georgetown, the homeless can be hidden amid the million-dollar homes

By Theresa Vargas, The Washington Post, 3-7-16

In a Georgetown elevator alcove, a heavyset woman in all black sits on two plastic crates, insisting to Gunther Stern that she is fine. She is not homeless, she says. She has a big house. But Stern knows differently. He knows that she will wear the same sweatshirt tomorrow, and the day after that. He knows that crammed into three nearby garbage bags, one topped with a tiny pink-haired doll, is everything she owns.

He knows that if he doesn’t check on her, no one might.

The woman, who gives her name as Janice one day and Darleen the next, has been homeless for decades, making her one of the neediest in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the nation’s capital. She’s a regular on Stern’s rounds.

For 25 years, Stern has run the Georgetown Ministry Center, which was created after a homeless man froze to death on the street more than three decades ago. But because many homeless cannot or choose not to come into the day center located behind a church, Stern often goes to them, stepping into the nooks that tourists will never see and forging relationships with their hidden occupants, some whose hardships are obvious and others who blend so seamlessly that they might disappear unnoticed if it weren’t for him.

In a city with about 7,000 people who have no place to live, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has vowed to end chronic homelessness by 2017. But a walk with Stern reveals the complicated reality of that ambitious goal.

Aaron Bivens panhandles during rush hour on M St. in Georgetown. Bivens says he has been on and off the streets with medical issues and has received aid from the Georgetown Ministry Center. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

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 Sens. Cassidy and Murphy explain their version of Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act–a companion bill to Rep. Tim Murphy’s legislation (Photo National Journal) 

(3-7-16) A group of Senators are quietly preparing a bipartisan mental health reform bill that they hope to introduce in mid-March in an attempt to get some form of mental health legislation passed this year, according to a news report and D. J. Jaffe, who monitors federal legislation for his website mentalillnesspolicy.org. 

Peter Sullivan, a reporter for The Hill, revealed in a March 4th story that the Senate effort is being led by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the leader of the Senate Health Committee, along with Democrat Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bill Cassidy (R. La.)  The White House also is reportedly involved in the negotiations.

You might remember that Sens. Murphy and Cassidy had aligned themselves with Reps. Tim Murphy (R.-Pa.) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D.-Tx.) in the House to get the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015  passed in both chambers. The Senate bill is S 1945 and the House version is 2646. Although they have the same name and are similar, they are not identical. The American Psychiatric Association has posted a comparison of them here. 

Until the Senators unveil their behind-the-scenes negotiations, no one can be certain how it will impact Murphy’s bill or others currently making their way through the legislative process. But some are worried that the Senate bill could be used to go around Murphy’s bill which has been stuck in the House even though it has 185 co-sponsors — including 50 Democrats and 135 Republicans.

The Pennsylvania psychologist’s bill has been a lightning rod since it was introduced because it calls for major changes in how mental health care services would be delivered in our nation. At a recent breakfast meeting sponsored by the International Bipolar Foundation, Murphy said that he hoped his bill would finally reach the House floor in March. In a recent 60 Minutes interview, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R. Wis.) said Murphy’s bill was on his radar.

But all of that was before news of the Senators’ closed door meetings and before eleven House Democrats introduced a bill last month as a Democrat alternative to Murphy’s bill.

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(3-4-16) Last year, I posted a blog about “Jenny,” a fifteen-year-old girl diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa whose parents were waging a social media campaign to persuade Aetna Insurance to pay for her treatment in a residential center that was out-of-network.  Jenny had already gone through in-network treatment programs four times during a two year period without success. Twelve hours after that blog was posted, Aetna agreed to approve coverage of Jenny’s treatment at Oliver-Pyatt Center, a facility in South Miami that specializes in treatment eating disorders. Sadly, I received this email from Jenny’s parents this week.)

Dear Pete,

After your blog last year and 34,000 tweets, Aetna agreed to cover our daughter’s treatment at Oliver–Pyatt. I never thought I would have to write for help again, but here it goes.  In January, my husband’s insurance changed to Blue Shield of California.  We had no choice but to switch, but we thought we were in the clear because Oliver–Pyatt is in their network. Just to make sure there were no bumps, we chose the most comprehensive Blue Shield plan available to us. 

Obviously, we didn’t want any interruption, because for the first time since the summer of 2014 Jenny has been making real progress. She is even now verbalizing that she wants to recover!  Before Oliver-Pyatt, she was “white knuckling” it — eating and going through the motions to appease her family and treatment team — her illness quietly waiting for the next opportunity to restrict, over-exercise, or self-harm herself.

At Oliver-Pyatt, doctors have worked to normalize the eating experience for her, as opposed to re-enforcing it as purely a mechanism for weight gain.  Thanks to that approach, she has on occasion said that she actually enjoys the flavor of some foods!  Eating is still very much a struggle, but she’s learning to discern likes and dislikes based on taste as opposed to caloric or fat content.

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courtesy of VOX

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(2-29-16) What’s the key to helping someone with a mental illness recover?

Is it robust community mental health services? Is it by forcing someone to take anti-psychotic medication? Is it housing? Jobs?

I’ve spent the past ten years traveling our country touring programs, examining services and talking to mental health experts, other parents, family members, and persons who have recovered. And I’ve come to believe that everything we do to help people recover is a temporary band-aid if the individual who is sick doesn’t want to get involved in their own recovery.

Lessons I’ve Learned: The Key To Recovery Is Engagement is the title of a new speech that I will be delivering to audiences beginning this year. (Here is a five minute snippet of my speech.)

This doesn’t mean that I’m no longer going to speak about the inappropriate incarceration of persons with mental illnesses in our jails and prisons. I still plan to talk about the need for Crisis Intervention Team training, jail diversion, mental health courts, and re-entry programs. I’m still going to speak about my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, and how my son’s breakdown and arrest led to me spending ten months inside the Miami Dade County jail following persons with mental illness through the criminal justice system and back onto the streets.

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