Roy Exum
I believe the state of Tennessee needs to function on a tight budget and I believe Governor Bill Haslam wants to do the right thing for the people of Tennessee. I also believe that if state government cuts our mental health funding by $10 million, as shown in the proposed 2016 budget, and we automatically lose the $20 million in federal funding that goes with it, to suddenly reduce our obligation by $30 million next year is absolutely crazy.
Let me let you in on some facts. Go to any source you choose, be it the Internet, the front page of any newspaper or the police blotter, and you’ll find mental illness is increasing in the United States.
The CDC tells us that one-in-10 Americans struggle with it.
How bad is it? In the calendar year of 2013 there were 48.4 million prescriptions written in the United States for Xanax (anxiety drug), 41.4 million written for Zoloft (depression, anxiety), 39.4 million for Celexa (depression, anxiety), 28.2 million for Prozac (depression, anxiety), and 27.9 million for Ativan (panic attacks, anxiety). That just five of the many psychotropic drugs doctors use!
Mental illness is a disease not to be taken lightly and to cut state funding is absolutely nuts. Globally, sales of psychotropic drugs are more than $76 billion a year—more than double what the U.S. government budget spends each year on the war against illegal drugs. In 2011 Alabama spent $511 million on mental health, Georgia spent $395 million, North Carolina spent $337.9 million while Tennessee spent $149.4.
The drug with the highest sales in America right now is known as Abilify, which really helps people who struggle with bipolar disorders, schizophrenia and depression. Not one person who takes Abilify wants to cope with mental illness but last year Americans paid $7.2 billion for Abilify alone. And now Tennessee wants to cut the budget? Oh please. Our mental health program ought to be doubled instead because already it is a huge problem in the state.
In Tennessee our Level 2 Case Management service handles all out-patient care for the mentally ill. We have greatly diminished in-patient services in Tennessee so, with mental illness increasing, it only stands to reason there are more out-patients than ever before. Ask any police officer, health care expert or mental health advocate and they’ll tell you Tennessee ranks among the worst places in the country to suffer from mental illness (a recent United Health Foundation study has the state at 44th out of 52 in total health care.)
The State Legislature – with health care insurance supplied by the state -- just shot down an “Insure Tennessee” package that would help 200,000 who now live in poverty with health insurance. Add the fact our Republican lawmakers refuse “Obamacare” so we have stubbornly lost that funding as well. So guess who can’t pay for any type of medicine, much less the desperately-needed psychotropic drugs? The CDC says one-in-10 people don’t take prescribed drugs because they can’t afford the cost. If the Governor slashes $30 million in mental health funding next year it is clearly a disaster in the making.
More than 40,000 Tennesseans were reportedly served by Level 2 case managers last year. Say we go through with the $30 million cut, here’s what is sure to happen. As out-patient services wane, those once served will instead go to hospital emergency rooms, jails, and to homeless shelters – which will cost the state and local government more money because all of those options are more expensive than out-patient care.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 26 percent of those now in shelters have serious mental disease and 24 percent of those in state prisons have “a recent history of a mental-health condition.” The NAMI believes that right now 8.4 million adults in America have co-occurring mental health and addiction disorders. To put that in perspective, the entire population of Tennessee is about 6.5 million.
The NAMI also believes 60 percent of adults and 50 percent of children with mental illness received no mental health services in the last year. To dare suggest we cut our mental health services by $30 million next year proves in a rather telling fashion some people in Nashville need to be on Xanax, Zoloft or Abilify.
The saving grace is that these medicines really can help deter what is obviously crazy thinking.
royexum@aol.com