Roy Blunt: “Just one final thought, we want to be sure that we are encouraging people to get the healthcare they need. You know, if…”

“Just one final thought, we want to be sure that we are encouraging people to get the healthcare they need. You know, if this system works like it should work, you really never know what you are doing in terms of how you have changed people's lives in the future or the lives of people they might impact. We don't want to create any stigma here that a resilient, broad-based mental health system that is part of this bill means that you should be hesitant to seek mental health help. You know, if you have a mental health problem, you are more likely to be the victim of a crime than you are the perpetrator of a crime. But if those problems get out of control--often suicidal thoughts first before you have homicidal thoughts--but if this system works the way it should, who knows what good you have done by just letting people go through their normal lives as contributing citizens with treating their mental health and talking about their mental health. As Senator Stabenow said, being able to talk about somebody in your family that has a mental health challenge as readily as you talk about somebody in your family that has a cancer challenge or a dialysis trip that they have to make multiple times a week to go somewhere or medicine that they take for something else and talking about this in the context of the good it does in making our society safer should, in no way, be interpreted to mean that people with a mental health concern are unsafe.…”