Budget cuts taking toll on mentally ill (results of Texas' 03 cuts)

[Rose Siding]

AUSTIN – For Cindy Wells and 11-year-old son Halston, cuts in mental health coverage meant daily trips to a pharmacy, pleading for one free pill to stave off the boy's ailments another day.
...
Ms. Wells, a single mother and oil exploration company receptionist who gets by on less than $25,000 a year, couldn't afford Halston's prescriptions once the 2003 Legislature repealed a child-care deduction that had kept them barely eligible for the Children's Health Insurance Program. So she had to patch together treatment for Halston's attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and an esophagus ailment.

The cuts, and similar trims to Medicaid coverage of counseling or indigent care for adults at community mental health centers, totaled about $150 million, part of the Legislature's work two years ago to close a $10 billion shortfall without raising taxes. The mental health cuts also cost the state about $200 million in federal matching money.

Now, jails and hospital emergency rooms – funded partly by local property taxes – are becoming dumping grounds for the mentally ill....
At least 144,000 mentally ill adults lost their coverage or subsidized services. It's unclear how many children were affected, but based on the impact of broader cuts to CHIP, thousands probably were.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/020805dntexmental.53639.html

[brainshrub]

1. The mentally ill are a discriminated minority.

The way we treat the mentally ill in this country is despicable.

[hadrons]

2. isn't the mentally ill the GOP's biggest base???

sorry, bad joke

[0007]

4. Sleeping under bridges and eating out of dumpters should be your lot!

Being cruel is not funny.

[sarcasmo]

3. Social Security cuts will do the same, only hurt the poor.

[Sparkly]

5. "jails and hospital emergency rooms...are becoming dumping grounds"

This points to a larger principle short-sighted Republicans, blinded by selfishness and greed, don't understand. Where people don't have healthcare, where people live in poverty, where people feel hopeless, there is a cost (in crime, courts, hospitals, prisons, property, etc.).

If Republicans can't do the right thing for people because it's the right thing to do, at least they should understand that it costs more to treat the symptoms of social ills than to prevent them. That's why I liked the way Clinton explained helping people as "investments." As in, "For every dollar we invest in urban development now, we reap 10 dollars in revenues over five years" or whatever. Even greedy Republicans, whether or not they care about human suffering, should be able to understand that.

[Mizmoon]

6. Please notice how little the families ask

all they want is help buying medications. They aren't even asking for what their mentally ill loved ones deserve - therapy, psychosocial treatment, perhaps assisted living facilities.

They ask so little and get even less.

It's very sad.

[Boomer]

7. I couldn't help but notice...

>> Ms. Wells, a single mother and oil exploration company receptionist who gets by on less than $25,000 a year <<

God forbid an OIL company should provide sufficient medical benefits so that their employees can afford critical medications.