Dear friends and fellow advocates,
I've been sending the Grassroots 2020: 5-Part Plan for SMI to presidential candidates and others. I got a real response from Liz Warren (1st class postage, signed) in the mail. Today, I opened an e-mail from her campaign people posting her various plans, including her Behavioral Health Coverage Transparency Act: This act would hold insurers accountable for providing adequate mental health benefits and ensure Americans receive the protections they are guaranteed by law.
Please let me know if we receive anything from other candidates, besides a general mention of mental health. Ellie
Ellie’s reply to Elizabeth Warren:
Thank you so much for your plan for the Behavioral Health Coverage Transparency Act.
Families are so tired and discouraged because they can't get help for loved ones with serious mental illness. It's heartbreaking to see the ongoing deterioration of their mental health until they end up wandering aimlessly in the streets, victimized by predators or jailed and imprisoned.
The revolving door of a psych ER doesn't help (some who do enter seeking help or are brought there by police are told to take an aspirin and leave). Over the years, even though there is more and more demand with each new generation, psych beds have disappeared. When relatives advocate for psychiatric care and more beds, we're told that hospitals are not required by law to treat mental illness, that insurance won't cover it, that they can't find staff to take of care patients with mental illness, that even if the mental illness is very serious, like schizophrenia with paranoia, that if they are adults, they must give consent, which they won't do, not knowing they are delusional and fearing everyone.
It's as if there’s a game of musical chairs going on and the seriously mentally ill don’t find seats to sit on — they don’t understand the game or how to compete for seats — and they've fallen right through the floor into our gutters.
Department of Public Health Services, hospital administrators, insurance companies, MediCAL, and state programs say there is no money for SMI but we spend even more as taxpayers on insane trips back and forth to jails and psych ERs, on police calls and emergency services, and non-profit agencies scattered all over who give directives the SMI can't follow. If families try to bring a SMI relative into care we can be prosecuted for violating their civil rights. The truth is that, even if people with SMI are adults, some can be as helpless as babes, hallucinating, starving, and using city sidewalks as toilets because they literally have no place to "go."
I'm in San Francisco and the city spends millions cleaning up fecal matter and urine in the wee hours of the morning because all that human waste is a public health threat. The sanitary workers have to wear special gear because they can't risk breathing in the contaminated spray from water hoses. Drug dealers prey on the SMI promising quick fixes. Needles and paraphernalia are everywhere.
Care for the mentally ill must be part of our healthcare plan, just like all the other illnesses that afflict us. For sure, there is no health at all without mental health —losing your sanity leads to all kinds of other biological illnesses as well. Treatment, follow-up care, and subsidized supportive housing will go a long, long way to helping SMI people reach some semblance of a normal life. We pay for that or we pay for ineffective agencies, so-called community health clinics, exacerbated illnesses, incarceration of the SMI, not to mention the heartbreak of everyone affected — and everyone is affected one way or another. Every year we don't address the issue more and more SMI people will be added to the ranks of the homeless and imprisoned.
Any more details you can work out for the Behavioral Health Coverage Transparency Act will be most welcome. Thanks to you and your staff for the work you're doing to make life healthier and more productive for all Americans.
NOTE: Sooner Than Tomorrow welcomes reports of SMI plans from all presidential candidates and other influencers.
Ellie and her family: Andy, Jay, and Jonny