Patrick J. Kennedy: “This is critical to ensure that mistakes such as what tragically happened to Jessie never happen again.”

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…

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.

We wouldn't expect any less if there were any other illness. And yet we settled for less than 20 percent of Americans getting any of that today in this country.

This is why it is time to pass the Telemental Health Expansion Act which I introduced, as I mentioned, with Congresswoman Doris Matsui.