Patrick J. Kennedy

What we're trying to do is make the spirit of parity a practical reality.

My big issue as you know, Anderson because you've had me on talking about his mental health and addiction and why I'm so pumped about Harris and Walz is Harris as part of the Biden-Harris, have done more for mental health than any other…

We wouldn't expect any less if there were any other illness. And yet we settled for less than 20 percent of Americans getting any of that today in this country.

Our family believes in democracy. We believe in the fact that my uncles, one of whom laid down his life in World War II fighting Hitler over Germany, got shot down.

If this were any other issue we would move heaven and Earth to deal with it. In COVID we responded right away, everybody inoculation, everybody out there. The longest impact of COVID is going to be mental health, and yet, we don't treat it.

I want to thank the Biden Administration. They’ve put teeth into the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.

When we have an emergency, FEMA comes in. They've got housing, job opportunities, support of this and that. We need a strategy that understands that housing is critical to address the homeless epidemic of people with severe mental illness…

We have so underfunded this system for so long, why is it a big surprise that we don't have enough providers in the field?

And really, in essence, this is corporate welfare of the first order. We are allowing the richest companies in our country, the healthcare insurance companies, who, by the way, are sitting on a boatload of cash because they have never had…

I think, obviously, when you look at the fact that so many of our jails are filled with people with mental illnesses and addictions, that clearly a better response than occupying police time would be to make sure that proper first…

I appreciate this is a bipartisan process, especially on mental health, which affects every family.