Political Quotes

“Madam President, let me say, our times got changed today a little bit, and I was trying to finish another thing to get over here and hear in person what Senator Stabenow had to say. She has been an incredible leader in this effort, a great partner. As she mentioned, we came to the floor the last day of October 2013, which was the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's signing the Community Mental Health Act. Well-intended, but an awful lot of it just didn't get done. Facilities were closed that maybe were well overdue to be closed, but the opportunities weren't put in place to replace them as that act had hoped they would be. I think we have been in the process of making big strides toward doing that. That was 2013. In 2014, we were able to get the first pilot project for Excellence in Mental Health put into place, an eight-State pilot project, where we were looking not only at the impact on those individuals and families who needed to have their behavioral health issue treated like all other health issues but also, frankly, looking to see what impact it had on all their other health issues when your behavioral health issue is being treated as it should be. One of the great costs in healthcare is missed appointments. You have got to believe that almost 20 percent of the population that has a behavioral health issue is more likely to miss an appointment than everybody else, and, of course, that costs the whole system, but it particularly costs them.…”