An email forwarded to me about Mental Health medicaid

[undergroundpanther]

President Bush has sent to Congress proposed language amendment for the
definitions of Medicaid rehabilitatation and case management. This will have
a devastating affect on the mental health of people with severe mental
illness, and the programs that serve them. Please read and respond by
contacting your representatives. Thank you.

New Medicaid Proposal Would Gut Community Mental Health Services


Urge Congress to Reject the Administration's Legislative Language

August 19, 2005 - The Bush Administration has just sent Congress proposed
language to amend the definitions of Medicaid rehabilitation and targeted
case management services, two core elements of public community mental
health systems. The changes, if enacted, could make it impossible for states
and localities to bill Medicaid for intensive community-based services for
adults with serious mental illness and children with serious mental or
emotional disorders.

Congressional committees will consider these proposals from the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in September.
Members of Congress need to hear from constituents about the catastrophic
impact their enactment would have on an already
struggling public community mental health system.

=============================================== Amendment Would
Cut Off Funds for Critical Services
===============================================

The most devastating provision would limit reimbursement for both
rehabilitation and targeted case management. In essence it
states that if any other federal, state or local law permits these services
to be furnished --by any of various agencies-- to
non-Medicaid individuals, then Medicaid cannot be billed.

Beyond considering services offered through mental health systems, the ban
would count mental health services funded through child welfare, education,
juvenile justice, housing, job training, courts or public guardianship
programs.

State mental health systems now rely on Medicaid to fund well over half of
the cost of community mental health services. If
federal Medicaid dollars disappear, state legislatures are extremely
unlikely to replace the funds

This proposal would devastate community mental health service delivery
through public systems. Americans with the most severe
mental illnesses would be left without community care. Hundreds of community
programs would likely go out of business, further reducing an already
disastrously low service capacity.

To make matters worse, the Administration has again proposed to reduce
federal funding for targeted case management to 50 percent (the rate for
administrative services, instead of the normal Medicaid services rate for
the state).

Read more about the Bush Administration's proposal to limit Medicaid for
people with mental illnesses at
http://www.bazelon.org/takeaction/2005/8-18-05medicaid.htm

============================================== Take Action Now
===============================================

The Administration's legislative proposals for Medicaid have been delivered
to the Senate Finance Committee and the House Energy
and Commerce Committee. Tell members of these committees that enactment of
the proposed language would leave hundreds of thousands of adults and
children without access to desperately needed care in their communities.

Urge them:

* to make no change to the current Medicaid definitions of rehabilitation
and targeted case management for people with mental illnesses; and

* to oppose the cut in reimbursement levels for targeted case management.
This service is not administration and should not be
funded at the lower administrative rate.

============================================ Please don't delay.
Contact your lawmakers today!
============================================

Members of the key House and Senate Committees must hear quickly how
drastic, unfair and dangerous these proposals are.

If either of your Senators and/or your Representative are on the committees
(listed below), contact their home office between now
and Labor Day. You can find the address and phone numbers at
http://www.congress.org

If your Senators and Representative are not on these committees, please call
the Capitol switchboard, 202-224-3121, to reach the
committee chairs and ranking minority members. (It's especially important to
reach Senators.) Or go to http://www.congress.org,
find your member's page and use the email link or dial the number listed
there.

===========================================================
Senate Finance Committee
===========================================================

or go to
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/committees.tt?com
id=sfina


Charles Grassley (R-IA)- Chair

Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

Trent Lott (R-MS)

Olympia Snowe (R-ME)

Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

Craig Thomas (R-WY)

Rick Santorum (R-PA)

Bill Frist (R-TN)

Gordon Smith (R-OR)

Jim Bunning (R-OR)

Mike Crapo (R-ID)

Max Baucus (D-MT)-Ranking Member

John Rockefeller IV - (D-WV)

Kent Conrad (D-ND)

James Jeffords (D-VT)

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

John Kerry (D-MA)

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)

Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Charles Schumer (D-NY)

====================================================== House Energy and
Commerce Committee
======================================================

or go to
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/committees.tt?com
id=hcomm

Joe Barton (R-TX-6th), Chair

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX-4th)

Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R-FL-9th)

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI-6th)

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL-6th)

Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH-5th)

Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA-10th)

Rep. Edward Whitfield (R-KY-1st)

Rep. Charles Norwood (R-GA-9th)

Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY-At-Large)

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL-19th)

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM-1st)

Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ-3rd)

Rep. Charles Pickering (R-MS-3rd)

Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY-13th)

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO-7th)

Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN-4th)

Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA-19th)

Rep. Charles Bass (R-NH-2nd)

Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA-16th)

Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA-45th)

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR-2nd)

Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE-2nd)

Rep. Michael Ferguson (R-NJ-7th)

Rep. Michael Rogers (R-MI-8th)

Rep. C.L. Otter (R-ID-1st)

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC-9th)

Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK-1st)

Rep. Timothy Murphy (R-PA-18th)

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX-26th)

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-7th)

John D. Dingell (D-MI-15th), Ranking Member

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA-30th)

Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA-7th)

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA-9th)

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY-10th)

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ-6th)

Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH-13th)

Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN-6th)

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL-1st)

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA-14th)

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI-1st)

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY-17th)

Rep. Albert Wynn (D-MD-4th)

Rep. Gene Green (D-TX-29th)

Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH-6th)

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO-1st)

Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA-23rd)

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA-14th)

Rep. Thomas Allen (D-ME-1st)

Rep. Jim Davis (D-FL-11th)

Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL-9th)

Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA-32nd)

Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX-20th)

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-1st)

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI-2nd)

Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR-4th)

======================================================== Please share this
information.
=========================================================

Forward this Action Alert to friends and colleagues.

=========================================================== More Information
===========================================================

1. Bazelon Center Legislative Update, focused on Medicaid
http://www.bazelon.org/takeaction/2005/8-5update.htm

2. What Congress and the Administration should do: Emergency Response: A
Roadmap for Federal Action on America's Mental Health Crisis, July 2005
report of the Campaign for Mental Health Reform,
http://www.mhreform.org/emergency

=========================================================== Your Donation is
Important
===========================================================

Your financial support helps us keep you informed on the latest developments
in mental health and disability law and policy.
Donate online today!

http://www.bazelon.org/support

============================================================



--

[melnjones]

1. Thanks for posting this...

I just forwarded it out to about 25 people.

[FormerRepublican]

2. Considering the fact that mental health assistance was already....

...non-existant, it's hard to find a place where they could actually cut it.

Bush must be anticipating all those returning soldiers with Chronic PTSD who shouldn't get federal dollars from the VA or the state to pay for their treatment.

Hey - where I live, the people with serious mental illness (and I mean SERIOUS delusional scitzophrenia) just wander the streets and live homeless in the city park.

People don't care about the poor. People don't care about the mentally ill. They're not really people, don't you know. They don't have INSURANCE or they'd picket to protect them! :sarcasm:

My 'puke elected officials think execution is the way to go. :sarcasm:

[undergroundpanther]

3. PSTD

I got PSTD from abuse at home.At school at the mental hospital.

Fucking bullies create victims than blame them for being victimized. What do bully rapists say? "she wanted it" what does bush say top the veterans "they signed on the dotted line"..I think it is time for people who are NOT bullies to get vicious on the bullies.To stop by standing,Stop enabling,Stop being a "helpless" victim.People got to stop perpetrating on others because they are frustrated with bullies,take it out on the target who hurt you,the fucking bully. The bully problem will not stop if you ignore it(they see it as permission to harm more),bullies take your pity as support for the sick shit they do,And the bully problem will not end if you back down and you give them what they seek as if it would pacify them,it never does..(dominion,ownership,control,authority & power)They just hurt people with it.

PSTD is the symptoms that a sick society manifests when it is dominated by violent hypocrite bullies, tyrants, greedy thoughtless pieces of shit and manipulative assholes.

Of course bush and all the people with asshole personalities like his fear PSTD being taken seriously.Every manipulating charismatic sociopath,every bully,every control freak,every abuser every con man fears it. Bush is scared of PSTD because his policies have caused alot of it and like all bullies Bush does not want to take any responsibility for their choices to hurt and disable people because he felt like it and thinks he can get away with it,and thinks he doesn't have to care because no one MAKES him care..

[Sugarbleus]

4. Hi UGP... I remember worrying about such a situation some time

back. While everyone was worried about Bush "tranquilzing" all of us, I was worried about just keeping what little county services there were left...

I recently received info from Medicare saying Medicaid will no longer pay for medications; that I will HAVE to go through Medicare for drugs--which I assume means I have to co-pay.

Then, I got a letter from our county mental health agency stating that they were worried about those of us who use Medicare and the issues of medicaid you just brought up. Some people use both Medicare and medicaid=Medi-Medi...I'm one of those. Lovingly, these agencies were truly concerned and promised to help in any way they could to continue service to those that need it. They asked us to KEEP any info we get from Medicare and bring it to them.

I read a "receipt" from Medicare showing the cost of services to county mental health (not to mention the cost of the meds!!)it's astronomical! OMG..What in hell is this gov going to leave in it's wake!!

I think the whole country is in a state of "disaster" under the neocons.

SB