Monday May 25, 2009, 4:41 am
Reform and Fund Public Mental Health

Dear Representative,

When the institutions for the mentally ill were closed, the promise made both to them and the public was that the institutions would be replaced by a system of easily accessed Public Mental Health clinics that would provide quality care on an outpatient basis in a timely manner. We're still waiting. In many states the care is hard to access and of dreadful quality as shown by NAMI's recent grading of the States.

Now, not only is Public Mental Health in danger from many direct budget threats but because of how many States have been shoring it up using Medicaid, it's also facing risks from the cuts Medicaid faces. Perhaps more problematic is that in many areas, Medicaid is a requirement to use Public Mental Health. This gets to be a really troublesome issue when you consider that in many States, one of the first places to cut the Medicaid budget is Medically Needy (MNP) Medicaid. With so many of the mentally ill childless but disabled by their condition, this combination will leave many with nowhere to turn for very necessary mental health care.

With no access to care, the mentally ill face hard choices: get their care from the ER when in crisis or go without care and stay untreated which means risking suicide, "self-medicating" via any of many kinds of substance abuse, getting in trouble with the law, going to court, ending up in jail or prison, being the victim of a crime, etc. Seems to me that any cost savings in Public Mental Health or Medicaid at this point is more cost shifting to all these other programs and at a high risk to many human lives.

Either way, a person left to become disabled by their mental illness - or (and perhaps worse) forced to become so just to have access to care - is left to face a dire level of poverty with little chance to escape. Is this humane treatment?

I realize the nation is facing hard times and must face tough choices, but is now when mental health care is going to be so necessary to so many really a time when we can afford not to finally properly reform and fund Public Mental Health? After all, doesn't everyone have the right to timely access to competent, professional mental health care if they need such care?

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Monday May 25, 2009, 6:39 am
Signed,#213. Thanks Tom.

Thank you for signing the petition "Fund and Reform Public Mental Health"

Monday May 25, 2009, 8:48 am
signed

Monday May 25, 2009, 8:52 am
Signed Thanks Tom

Monday May 25, 2009, 9:24 am
Noted and signed: "Thank you for signing the petition "Fund and Reform Public Mental Health." Thanks, Tom!

Monday May 25, 2009, 10:08 am
Noted and action taken xx

Monday May 25, 2009, 3:45 pm
pledged, signed and noted TY Tom!

Monday May 25, 2009, 8:17 pm
Noted and signed. Thanks Tom.

Tuesday May 26, 2009, 5:51 am
noted

Tuesday May 26, 2009, 8:59 am
noted, already signed.

Tuesday May 26, 2009, 10:43 am
noted & signer #231

Tuesday May 26, 2009, 5:23 pm
Signed--Tx Tom

Tuesday May 26, 2009, 5:56 pm
MY GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD! HE REINS FROM HEAVEN ABOVE

WITH VICTORY, POWER AND LOVER, MY GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!

He is giving the WORLD a passion to care about the mentally ill - people who are arrested for behavior they cannot understand and control

People who are abused

People who spend up to 23 hours a day in a closed space no bigger than a coffin - 6' by 9' - never hearing a kind voice - sometimes for years!

People who are shot, TASERED, beaten, and left homeless

God is raising up the mentally ill, he is blessing them with PEOPLE LIKE YOU AT CARE2 to join me in telling prison profitters - "LET HIS PEOPLE GO!"

I thank God for Change.org carrying this petition, and thank all of you who sign it. Thank you who carry it on your websites and tell others about this effort.

It is time for all of us who CARE to give ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL and to people who risk incarceration for reason of a common, treatable health condition. Bless you.

WHAT ABOUT SGT. RUSSEL? PRISON, EXECUTION, OR LONG-TERM MENTAL HOSPTIAL?

Please help a sick veteran who lost his health trying to keep America safe, no matter where you stand on the war issue. This man needs YOU.

PETITION TO SAVE SGT. RUSSEL~DROP HIS CRIMINAL CHARGES

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Save-Sgt-Russel

Tuesday May 26, 2009, 6:20 pm
If there were safe places for the mentally ill to go without the torture and abuse they receive from these Psychiatric institutions I would be more than happy to sign. But since there isn't I can not. They are much better off living on the streets and I honestly mean that.

1yr olds now getting Electric Shock Treatment.

Thursday May 28, 2009, 8:34 pm
Sue w I agree with you, completely and yet I signed and I'll tell you why- because some people I know of are better off in the relative"safety" of institutions. I was not.

In the hopes that there would be a more holistic approach to care for these conditions I signed that petition..I am in talks with some counselors here about programs for patients with the emphasis on less medication and more herbal and supplemental remedies. My caseworker and friend had her training at the Mayo Clinic-she and her student nurses and others in the mental health circle solicit my opinion on their programs and I speak at their conventions on their newest ones.

I belong to NAMI as a full advisor -now treated for my autism but I went the long way around to my diagnosis, medically poisoned, traumatized into aphasia and catatonia and semi-coma and almost wrongly committed, an attempted suicide due to their medications (zyprexa) and nearly ECT'd into a lobotomy.

And this after the fact that I was tormented for 4 years by my ex-husband-battered mentally and physically.

Now I have a private home therapist who comes to me according to my parameters to work through all these wrongs to unravel them and things are going very well. It has taken 10 years to get here. I have a therapy cat-my Mu-given me in 2001 to stop my suicidal attempts- his every need is seen to by NAMI and the psychological ward and hospital tht did the damage-and an apartment that is maintained by them. Everything is paid for by them and the state of Minnesota.

NAMI has issued an apology on behalf of the state of Minnesota and taken care of me-including providing me with private drivers (I cannot drive), and escorts(I am an abandonment/abduction case) -there is a provision in my living will that I will never concede to institutionalized care...and will be provided the finest care by the state in perpetuityand I have a contract with NAMI that to that effect-I am self medicated and only with holistics. And neurontin for mini-seizures.

Let's just say "we have an understanding." And I would hope that NAMI and the entire mental health arrangement in the United States and other countries as well-would take a lesson from what nearly happened to me through shoddy care, brutal management, incompetent therapistsists and doctors, and forced drugging.

Thanks Tom. I never meant to get this detailed but it was quite a catharsis.

Friday May 29, 2009, 11:19 pm
Tom i would just like to add that the number of suicides in miltary personnel returning from a war zone has increased over this past yeat. CNN had a news special and obviosly the bottom line and the big question is why is PTSD left undiagnosed and worse, in some cases, known but documented as something else so that the government is not obligated to pay that soldier any compensation and take care of medical expenses.
I just hope and pray that the Obama administration will rise to the level that is truly worthy of the sacrifices made to "Old Glory" ... and that Congress does not deliberately over ride an important bill such as the one proposed here as well as others, using the lame excuse that there just isn't enough money !

Mental Health for all Americans needs to be a priority ... let the healing begin !

Friday May 29, 2009, 11:19 pm
Tom thank you . rosemary rannes Salem, NH
Sent letter to Paul Hodes , Barack Obama , Judd Gregg , Bob Casey , David Bettencourt , Ronald Belanger , Anthony DiFruscia , Mary Griffin and Robert Elliott
May 05

Monday June 8, 2009, 8:44 am
Thank you for signing the petition "Fund and Reform Public Mental Health
Thanks Tom