Mary Neal's Sharebook 

Media owners, will you PLEASE stop discriminating against mentally ill people?  When H.R. 3200 for national health care was on the table, the bill was discussed on every newscast for a year.  Newspaper reporters wrote about it, and broadcast journalists filled the airwaves with news about the national health care plan that EXCLUDES mental hospital coverage.  However, H.R.619, the bill that proposes resuming Medicaid coverage for psychiatric hospitalization, has received absolutely NO mainstream news coverage. If I were a media owner/prison investor, I would not want to make that fact so OBVIOUS.  Your bias is very blatant.  It discredits you as journalists, and lessens you as human beings to want to reserve sick people for prison so much that you outright ignore the best chance acute mental patients have to escape the revolving door in and out of prisons and jails.

It is estimated that 1 in 5 Americans has some form of mental illness.  It is wrong for the congressional bill that offers psychiatrically challenged people hospital insurance coverage to be omitted from news reports.  Do you presume to just ignore this important congressional bill?  In so doing, you renege on your responsibility to report news that affects many millions of Americans and has tremendous bearing on a number of social ills that affect the rest of the nation.  Where do mentally ill people go when they are in crisis?  Unfortunately, mental hospitals are steadily closing, and sick people are populating prisons in increasing numbers.  One major point of concern for people who CARE is that people are not generally taken to jail until AFTER some crime is committed.  Hospitals are useful for prevention of suicides and murders that sometimes occur from lack of timely treatment. 

Are you afraid that if mentally challenged Americans get the treatment they need, you would miss having gory news reports about sick people being Tasered to death by police during lunacy arrests or a mentally ill mother drowning all her children?  Is that why mainstream media fails to notify America that a congressional bill was introduced LAST JANUARY  - 15 months ago - that would reverse the bad decision to exempt mental hospitalization from Medicaid coverage?  That decision led to the MONSTEROUS prison rolls that America has now.  Approximately 1.25 million of the nation's 2.3 million inmates are mentally ill people.  They comprise 60% of those in solitary confinement, cruelly imprisoned in torturous conditions because they lack the mental stability to conduct themselves according to society's laws.  However, severe mental patients are frequently DENIED treatment that could have prevented the crimes that led to their arrests. 

IF Medicaid was removed as a funding source because officials thought decades ago that it would save money, that has certainly been proved wrong.  Prison costs rose to $50 billion per year in 2008, according to PEW.  When one factors in police services, court costs, lawyers for indigent defendants, and probation programs, the cost for crime and punishment is roughly $185 billion annually. And OVER HALF of the inmates going through that process REPEATEDLY are mentally ill people who cannot be punished or rehabilitated into a state of mental health. Therefore, resuming Medicaid so that sick people can be treated for their psychiatric issues and crimes prevented would save money and lives. 

Prisons are overcrowded.  Even mentally and physically sound people are dying from diseases that spread easily in such environments.  In 2007, eight California prisoners reportedly died of tooth decay when infection from rotten teeth entered their bloodstreams.  Some inmates say they are HUNGRY, because their meal portions are inadequate.  May I remind you that plenty of people in jail are there because they cannot make bail or no bond was set?  Therefore, they are innocent until found guilty in a court of law.  In view of the fact that around 500 convicted persons had their convictions overturned after DNA tests, new trials or hearings, there is every reason to believe that a significant number of prisoners may actually be innocent people.  Innocent or guilty, they all deserve human rights.  But so many are crowded into prisons now (because the mentally ill were added and do not belong there), that it is a strain to provide for their meals and health care. 

In addition to overcrowded conditions endangering the inmates' health, the prison budget is oppressive and prevents funding for other domestic programs, like education, public transportation, recreation and jobs programs - things that could help reduce crime and prevent more incarcerations.  If the mentally ill were treated in hospitals and community care programs instead of criminalized for their chronic health conditions, many of them would be stabilized sufficiently to return to wholesome lives and become taxpayers rather than tax burdens.  Therefore, some of the billions that are now being used to imprison them would become available for wiser investments during these lean days in our economy. 

If mental illness is not decriminalized and moved back to the health care system where it should have remained in the first place, prison costs will grow even more for several reasons:  1) mental stress builds during economic downturns; 2) around 54% of veterans transitioning home after combat duty may have PTSD; and 3) recidivism is higher among the mentally ill, many of whom left prison in worse mental states than when they arrived  Jail is not a soothing, healing environment for mentally ill people, even if they receive treatment while incarcerated.

U.S. Census reported in 2000 our population was 309,090,174 people.  If 1 in 5 were mentally ill, that means we had 61,818,035 sick people. ten years ago.  Each of the people who needs hospital coverage for mental illness likely has four people who care about them and would never want to see them imprisoned for having a heath crisis.  That means mental health insurance coverage affects all 309,090,174 people, because most of us have a friend or relative who wrestles with depression, substance abuse problems, and more severe conditions like bipolar disorder, PTSD, and schizophrenia. 

What possible excuse could mainstream media have to omit reporting about a bill that has such significance during a time when health coverage is the dominate topic on every newscast and in every single newspaper you published?  That has to be deliberate exclusion and censorship, and I demand that you stop it right now.  Furthermore, the American public should demand it with me and boycott your news reports and newspapers until you at least pretend to care about Americans with mental disabilities.  Please report that we have an opportunity before us to decriminalize mental illness and turn around many other problems by doing so.  Moreover, respect your customers who may not care about mental health care bills but rely on you for complete news coverage.

Below is a report on H.R.619's mainstream news coverage from January 21, 2009 until today - ZERO.  That is obvious prejudice and dereliction of duty.  Are you afraid that fully-informed Americans will support H.R.619, as they should?  Even if you do not editorialize in favor of H.R.619, at least let people know that it exists.  You have not even done that.  Everyone who calls himself a journalist should be ashamed.  Please improve.  We cannot afford to postpone addressing such problems.  People are suffering and dying needlessly, and prison costs are choking the nation.

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

Such as you have done unto ONE of the least of these, My brethren, you have done it unto me. ~JESUS CHRIST