Patrick J. Kennedy: “I am going to be introducing legislation soon that would tackle this issue by supporting innovative programs.”

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

Denial is the big issue here. And we all know growing up in families where there is alcoholism and addiction or mental illness that we don't like to talk about these things.

the bottom line is, when I go into the ER, if I am going in with COVID or something else and they don't understand about my underlying psychiatric issues, or in the case of addiction they do not know that I am someone who suffered from the…

there are hundreds of thousands of my fellows in America who are dying because their medical system does not know they have an underlying addiction because it doesn't show in the EMR that they have been treated for addiction.