Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I know that we have a number of things scheduled here, including some farewell speeches from some of our colleagues. I was scheduled to speak, and I do want to speak, and I will try not to take too much advantage of the time. I wanted to speak today and this week about the importance of treating mental health and the importance of the role that law enforcement plays in the way we treat mental health in this country. For too long, law enforcement and emergency room personnel have been, in effect, the de facto mental health delivery system for the country. The National Institutes of Health says that one in five Americans has a mental health or behavioral health issue and that one in nine adult Americans has a behavioral health issue that impacts how they live every single day. Two Congresses ago, in the 113th Congress, Senator Stabenow and I worked to pass legislation--the Excellence in Mental Health Act. What that did was to create eight State demonstration projects that would last for 2 years each to see what would happen if we treated mental health like all other health concerns--something that everybody knows I believe we should have been doing and something that in eight States we are doing. The good news was that 24 States applied, a number that exceeded every discussion that anybody had about how many States would step forward and say: We would like to be the States that try to do this first. Twenty-four States applied.…”