Policy Analysis Paper: Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015

Policy Analysis Paper: Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015
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. Policy Analysis Paper: Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015
Introduction
In 2015, Rep. Tim Murphy (R. PA) and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D. TX) advanced the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015 (“HFMHCA”, HR 2646), which is an upgrade of the 2013 bill which fail to pass. The legislation is seeking to bring remedy to the field of mental health where many things have gone wrong. It seeks to address the fundamental challenges that impede access to quality mental health services. Many people have encountered frustrations when they have a mental illness, where often, people have to care for themselves, increased handling of mental cases by law enforcement agencies, and marginalization by mental health experts and professionals. This legislation provides feasible solutions touching o various areas, including provisions on the codification of Medicaid coverage for inpatient mental health care, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) education programs, reports and transparency on parity, and grant programs. Dr.Murphy, a practicing psychologist, is highly informed of the troubles in the sphere of mental care component is chaotic, patchwork, ineffective policies, and many organizations that are deficient of collaborative strategies in dealing with mental health issues. Dr.Murphy, while drawing his in-depth insights and experience from mental health, opines that the current challenges in mental health partly emanates from a patchwork of diverse programs and some cases of infective policies across many mental health-related agencies. The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015 development is elicited by data showing that about 11 million Americans suffer from severe mental disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar, and major depression (Jablon, 2017). A substantial portion of this population often goes without any quality treatment. Their families struggle to find and support the appropriate treatment for their affected family members on many occasions. Thus, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015 seeks to collaboratively address the challenges in the broken mental health care system by increasing focus and coordination of programs and resources on psychiatric care for the patient and their families in need of care. The core challenges that this policy addresses include confidentiality and privacy bottlenecks, inappropriate use of mental health-related funds, discriminatory practices, inadequate financing, discharge and admission challenges for persons with mental illness, and SAMHSA's weaknesses.
Current Problem
The component of mental health is not only problematic in the U.S but also in other countries and regions globally, where there are increasing concerns over mental services accessibility. There is a spectrum of challenges that impede access to quality and affordable mental health services, as evidenced by wide-ranging misconceptions about mental illness, insufficient funding, and marginalization in terms of health care financing and insurance coverage. According to this legislation's proponents, the U.S mental health care system is broken and needs urgent fixing, and this worrying situation is no different for substance abuse. According to details presented in the development of the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015, there are approximately 40,000 suicide deaths, 42,000 drug overdose-related death cases, 60 million Americans diagnosed, and 10 million people with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar (Velis et al., 2018). The General Accounting Office, while reviewing the legislation for the committee, said that the U.S spends the Federal Government $130 billion a year, over about 112 programs and agencies that don't work collaboratively and together, showed little accountability, and in many cases, their outcomes are dismal (Jablon,2017).
The universal challenges in mental health are magnified by confidentiality and privacy issues espoused in Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) that negatively restrict access to information held by patients who have a mental illness. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is also weak, making it impossible to achieve optimal results in the use of Block Grants and reduced negative metrics like increased mental illness-related incarcerations.
The proponents of the bill raise thought-provoking questions regarding the state of mental health. They imagine a child is hallucinating, schizophrenic and such a child is on the street, and potential helpers are informed that they have no right to know any detail about such a child, including location and condition, to mention a few. People may think that having information about others is harmful to children, or even a judge can say being crazy is not against the law. Why can the judge not similarly say that it is not criminal to have a heart attack? Why is it okay to have a mental illness but not fine to experience physical illness like a heart attack? This conflict emerges as a result of misconceptions, misunderstandings, and myths about mental illness. Serious mental illness is a brain disorder and should be treated as such. Believing that it is not a mental illness should be considered anti-science and constitutes an injustice to the mentally affected persons due to denial of treatment, increased incarceration and imprisonment, homelessness, unemployment, victimizations, and impediments to quality healthcare.
The problems facing the U.S mental health care system did not start recently. Instead, these challenges have been there and have developed over decades. Mental health occupies a critical component of the healthcare system. Since time immemorial, humans have been concerned about how mental disorders can be managed. Recent data show that about 20 % of adults in America will experience a mental illness and approximately one-half of mental illness commences at the age of 14, and three-quarters by the age of 24 (Gardner,2015). It is worrying to note that only about 60% of adults received mental health services, and only 50% of children ages 8–15 (Gardner, 2015). Over a long time, individuals with mental illnesses substantially fail to access adequate treatment for their disorders. Stigmatization and beliefs regarding the underlying cause of mental illness and the nature of mental illness have aggravated those with mental illness. Though insurance covers mental illnesses, mental health coverage is not provided equally with other services.
The relevance of mental health in contemporary society calls for the need to invest more in resources that boost increased access to mental health services. More often, mental illness has been stigmatized when compared to medical or surgical conditions. Even in terms of insurance financing, there are more restricting limitations suppressing insurance financing of disorders associated with mental idiosyncrasies. In ancient times, mental illness symptoms were thought of not as an illness. Instead, they were perceived as manifestations of demonic possession, sins of religious punishment. Some current society sections still believed that mental illness could be a sign of immoral or sinful behaviors. However, there is overwhelming evidence indicating the correlation between brain abnormalities and psychopathologies and mental disorders. Could the misconceptions about mental illness contributing to the sidelining of entail illness in the mainstream disease management and mitigation system? Or the health financing parties and insurance plans feel that individuals contribute greatly to their mental fate? Are we blaming the victim of mental health challenges, such that no one is willing to remedy self-inflicted disorders, for example, drug-induced psychosis?
The development of modern psychiatry marks the twentieth century, though it also comes with the perception that psychiatry is pseudoscience. The skepticism and criticism of psychiatry could have merged because mental disorders' origin and biological processes remained poorly understood. However, with the development of the diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the field of psychiatry gained tremendous milestones in legitimacy. Despite this tremendous progress, stigmatization and sideline of mental health continue to prevail, where mental illness may not be perceived as a disease, and such beliefs perpetuate the wave of stigmatization against the mentally ill patient and lead to where questions are raised to determine whether the insured mental health treatments approaches are meritorious ( Kessler,2014). Health insurance, over a long time, has become a significant barrier to mental health services access. It is challenging to access public insurance programs due to strict eligibility requirements. For instance, in Medicare legibility, one must be over 65 years of age, disabled, and receiving Social Security Disability Insurance benefits.
Stakeholders and Goals
The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act has diverse stakeholders and goals that seek to fulfill. It affects various stakeholders, especially in terms of implementations, including the healthcare providers, the patients, the families, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Department of Health ...