It isn't enough to offer local governments a one time funding boost on one hand and then just turn around and cut Medicaid, the single largest payer of behavioral health services in the country by $800 billion with the other.
Kennedy criticizes contradictory funding policies affecting Medicaid and addiction services.
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More from Patrick J. Kennedy
When we have an emergency, FEMA comes in. They've got housing, job opportunities, support of this and that. We need a strategy that understands that housing is critical to address the homeless epidemic of people with severe mental illness…
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?
Congress and the country have really never appropriated the necessary resources for this crisis.
cutting states' critical funding at a time when they are needed most is wrong.