Sentinel Doctors
How Public Policy Is Failing the Severely Mentally Ill
By Meridian M. Paulton, Research Assistant in Domestic Policy Studies, Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation.
Severe mental illness has received considerable attention lately, owing largely to recent tragedies, including mass shootings involving the mentally ill.
The issue also has emerged in discussions about fighting poverty, because an estimated 1 in 5 homeless people suffer from severe mental illness. It also has arisen in the context of criminal justice and prison reform, since some 20 percent of the incarcerated are thought to be seriously mentally ill.
In 2016, an estimated 10.4 million adults in the United States suffered from serious mental illnesses.
The issue of how best to treat these people is a complex matter, as experts in psychiatry, law, and public policy noted last week in a panel discussion at The Heritage Foundation on severe mental illness.
The discussion began with an opening statement from Dr. Sally Satel, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a Washington, D.C.-based psychiatrist, who emphasized that there’s a clear distinction between a severe “mental illness” and a “mental health” concern.
She said, for example, that someone who has “mood swings” often does not pose the same potential dangers as a manic person whose delusions could lead to violent and erratic behavior.
Severe mental illness is most typically schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, Satel noted, but can include severe instances of other diseases and behaviors.
D.J. Jaffe—executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org and a longtime advocate for the seriously mentally ill—said there’s a noticeable shift among mental health activists that homes in on particular agendas, such as destigmatization of mentally ill patients, and a focus on mental wellness.
That has distracted much-needed policy attention from those with severe mental illness, he argued, adding that 35 percent of the most seriously mentally ill never receive treatment. That includes the 40,000 incarcerated people and 140,000 homeless people with a serious mental illness.
Efforts that do exist are poorly targeted, too: Though suicide-prevention programs typically target young people, Jaffe says that 90 percent of those who take their own lives are adults.
Andrew Sperling, director of legislative and policy advocacy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, emphasized the need for more research in mental illness treatments. There is currently no cure for mental illness, so “treatments are palliative,” he said.
But Sperling said that many pharmaceutical companies, unfortunately, have abandoned efforts in this field, owing largely to the difficulty of conducting such research. While HIV researchers discovered a biomarker in developing treatment, no equivalent discovery has yet been made in the mental illness arena.
Sperling is hopeful research efforts will continue and that companies would return to develop long-term treatments and possible cures.
John Malcolm, vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Governmentand director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, reminded the audience that there are times when someone with severe mental illness is truly a danger to themselves or others.
“Two-thirds of all gun-related deaths are people who commit suicide,” Malcolm said. “And it’s been estimated that 10 percent of gun-related violence and 60 percent or more of mass shooters are suffering from a severe mental illness.”
What’s more, these individuals often self-medicate with alcohol or illegal substances, he said, and that dramatically increases the risk of violence.
Malcolm expressed concern over the high standard of evidence required to commit a severely mentally ill person to a mental hospital. That has often landed these individuals in jail cells, rather than hospital beds.
The panelists concluded the discussion by stressing the importance of broadening awareness of serious mental illness and understanding of how public policies affect those suffering from it.
This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal
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CFPB Deputy Director Is Challenging the President’s Authority. Here’s Why Her Arguments Are Flawed.
By John G. Malcolm, Vice President for the Institute for Constitutional Government at The Heritage Foundation. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been a political hot potato since the day it was created as part of the legislative response to the 2008 financial crisis. A brainchild of then-Harvard law professor (now…
Q&A: FCC Chairman Explains Why He’s Ending Obama’s ‘Heavy-Handed Internet Regulations’
By Rob Bluey, Senior Vice President, Communications at The Heritage Foundation, Editor in Chief at The Daily Signal. The Federal Communications Commission will vote in December on a proposal to repeal Obama-era net neutrality rules. Shortly after publicly announcing the news, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai spoke to Daily Signal Editor-in-Chief…
Why Eliminating Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Should Be Part of Tax Reform
By Rachel Greszler, Research Fellow in Economics, Budget and Entitlements at The Heritage Foundation. Obamacare’s individual mandate survived the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling on the Affordable Care Act solely because the court interpreted the insurance requirement as a “tax.” But now that Republicans in the Senate have included repealing—or zeroing…
Memo for the Movement: Congress Must Prioritize Responsible Spending in Year-End Deals
A PDF version of this memo, signed by Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham and other leaders in the conservative movement, can be found here. Memo for the Movement Congress Must Prioritize Responsible Spending in Year-End Deals November 20, 2017 Washington, D.C. For years, conservatives have been sounding the alarm on…
The Stupid Party gets smart
By Stephen Moore, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Project for Economic Growth, Institute for Economic Freedom and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation. Republicans have long been known as “the stupid party.” They do stupid things, like waiting until mid-November to pass a must-pass tax cut that should have been done by April.…
Democrats in Meltdown Mode as Obamacare Individual Mandate Moves Toward Extinction
By Emily Miller, award-winning journalist and author of the book "Emily Gets Her Gun" about gun control policies. Democrats, of course, oppose the tax cuts moving through Congress. They believe government knows better how to spend your money than you do. But what has really got their goat is eliminating the Obamacare…
Q&A: Rep. Jim Banks Talks About the Benefits of Tax Reform
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., spoke to The Daily Signal’s Genevieve Wood earlier this month, before the tax reform bill passed the House, about how eliminating the state and local tax deduction will benefit middle- and working-class families. Below is a transcript of the conversation, edited for style and clarity: Wood:…
How the GOP Tax Bill Will Affect the Economy
By Parker Sheppard, Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, and David Burton, Senior Fellow, Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. The House passed its version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on Thursday, a bill that would reform the tax…
Repeal HIT on consumers and small businesses
By David Burton, Senior Fellow in Economic Policy, Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, Institute for Economic Freedom and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation. After a one-year moratorium, a new Obamacare tax will kick in this January. As a result, premiums for individual and small group health insurance plans will…
ACLU Threatens to Stamp Out Diversity by Shuttering Faith-Based Adoption Agencies
By Emilie Kao, Director, Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, and Zachary Jones, Member, Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. November is National Adoption Awareness Month. And how is the American Civil Liberties Union celebrating? By trying to reduce the number…
Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize California’s spending addiction
By Dan Holler, Vice President, Heritage Action for America. Buried within the more than 74,000 pages of our nation’s tax code lies a special tax deduction that allows state and local governments with excessively high taxes to shift part of the burden to taxpayers in other states. In other words,…
Congress Is Putting Itself in a Straightjacket on Tax Reform
By Bill Walton, Host of "Common Ground with Bill Walton" and Trustee of The Heritage Foundation. It’s beginning to look like Republicans in Congress are going to squander yet another opportunity to do something big to boost the economy. Our pro-prosperity president wants a pro-growth tax package, but our Republicans…
Bill Would Protect Pro-Life Nurses Like These 3 Women
By Ian Snively, Member, Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. Pro-life members of Congress have introduced legislation to protect health care providers from being compelled to provide abortions under threat of losing their jobs. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., held a press conference on the House Triangle outside the U.S.…
Congress Could Soon Face a Budget Fight. Here’s How Lawmakers Can Rein in Spending.
By Romina Boccia, Deputy Director, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Grover M. Hermann Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Two thousand seventy-five dollars. That’s every American’s personal share of the fiscal year 2017 budget deficit. The total deficit? Six hundred sixty-six billion dollars. It’s the American people…