Patrick J. Kennedy: “We have got to address the stigma, and we have got to put the resources behind these efforts.”

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.

If this were any other issue we would move heaven and Earth to deal with it. In COVID we responded right away, everybody inoculation, everybody out there. The longest impact of COVID is going to be mental health, and yet, we don't treat it.

And until there is that same urgency towards enforcing, and until there is that same money backing up our words that these are really equal illnesses, we are really still in denial as a Nation.

We have so underfunded this system for so long, why is it a big surprise that we don't have enough providers in the field?