Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his support. While waiting for my friend John Katko of New York to come forward, I want to reflect on how long it has taken us to do this. What we used to do up through the 1800s is just throw people in jail. Then along came an activist by the name of Dorothea Dix, who saw the abysmal conditions in our prisons for the mentally ill, saw them chained to walls in squalor and filth, beaten and abused. She spoke up to have institutions built that would be better respites for them. Indeed, that took place for awhile, but then they became overcrowded, and that was part of what we shut down. As my other colleague talked about, Mr. Blumenauer mentioned that then we thought, well, we have other outpatient care for them. That promise never came through. This legislation would, as I mentioned before, allow us to have more providers in psychology, psychiatry, social work. It would also merge the mental health and substance abuse dollars to allow States to use both. We have got to be treating mental health and substance abuse dollars, not to cut either one, but to make sure that a person with substance abuse disorder and mental illness can be treated. It would bring accountability of spending Federal funds for grants. Our bill would establish a national mental health policy lab within SAMHSA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and set scientific objective outcome measures.…”