Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership on the Health Subcommittee and on the Energy and Commerce Committee. I rise today in strong support of the Improving Access to Emergency Psychiatric Care Act. I thank Representative Brooks of Indiana for her support of this measure and certainly welcome the fact that this is a bipartisan piece of legislation. What this bill would do is it would extend a demonstration project, as indicated, that ends the Federal prohibition on Medicaid matching payments to community psychiatric hospitals for emergency psychiatric cases. This demonstration project allows individuals with severe mental illness who are a threat to themselves or to others, including those with substance abuse disorders who have experienced overdoses, to get emergency inpatient treatment. The background of this is as follows: There has been a longstanding Medicaid provision, dating back to 1965, called the institutions for mental diseases, IMD, exclusion. Under that, the Federal Government is prohibited from providing Medicaid matching funds and reimbursement for the care of eligible individuals aged 21 to 64 if that care is provided in an inpatient facility that primarily treats people with mental health and substance abuse disorders and if that facility has more than 16 beds. As was indicated, the effect of this exclusion has been to decrease the number of inpatient psychiatric beds that are available for emergency services.…”