Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for her comments and for her continued pursuit of making sure we pass this. This bill was first introduced over a year ago, reworked with a lot of bipartisan input, Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, and also from many, many organizations. The other day, some 23 organizations delivered a letter to some Members of Congress saying they want to see comprehensive mental health reform. This is the first and the most comprehensive mental health reform our country has seen. The last time some efforts were made, it was the very last bill that President Kennedy signed before he was assassinated to begin to make some change in our country to move away from the asylums and towards community mental health. Unfortunately, that dream only came partially true because what happened is we closed those asylums. Back in the 1950s, we had 550,000 psychiatric hospital beds in this country. At that time the population of the country was 150 million. Now the population of the country is over 316 million, 320 million, and we only have 40,000 psych beds. Now, Madam Speaker, some of that is because we have come up with more effective treatments, better ways of identifying and diagnosing people, better medications, and, quite frankly, those asylums of yesteryear needed to close. Many times they were homes of abuse and given nicknames like snake pits, cuckoo's nests, and other derogatory terms because they were so bad.…”