The Politics of Mental Health Care with Patrick Kennedy
On April 26, the IOP hosted former US Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) for a discussion on the politics of mental health parity. Kennedy examined the broken state of mental health care in America and the issues the electorate should be paying attention to this fall. The son of Senator Ted Kennedy, Patrick left Congress after his father’s death to devote his career to advocacy for brain diseases by fostering public awareness and pushing for policy changes. In his recent book about his personal struggle and family history of addiction, Kennedy criticizes the current system that treats addiction and other mental health afflictions as personal failures rather than medical conditions. Given the prevalence of this issue, how do the proposals from candidates up and down the ballot shape up and what actions can we expect following the election this year?
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3 Comments
amen! "We need to simply cover brain health like we would any other physical health issue. Which means we cover it early, screen for it early, treat it early, just like you would with cardiovascular disease. We DONT DO THAT. We wait until you get really sick and then MAYBE we cover you. No wonder so many are dying of overdose, no wonder so many are successfully completing suicide…. That is a really sad state of affairs". I am with you Patrick Kennedy #mentalwellnessmatters
38:11 Cradle-to-grave Care. Start with young people and "create" a caring "family" "community" setting in a shared interest group home, similar to whole life foster care. Instead of creating institutions, institutionalize the concept of "family." In this model outcomes can be measured on evidence-based treatment IN a "family" setting instead of taking the person out of the family to get care.
It's another colorful metaphor for political l Guage, It's sad that FDR, recognized the importance of becoming literary inclined regarding health and medicines, unfortunately, many others saw this as a increase in It's own personal wealth, thereby, kidnapping, murdering, falsifying documents, plagiarism, espionage, etc, became a normal way of life for those who were born illiterate and thus, they use the race game as a privilege to steal from the poor to make themselves rich, ironically, they are rich in lies, will never be rich in the areas of dignity, integrity, self respect etc, they will live as liars on earth and die the same