Healthcare Post 1: Mental Health

Healthcare is a huge topic, and one which is heavily politically charged. For this and the next two posts, I intend to examine each candidate's positions on three parts of healthcare: mental healthcare, healthcare cost and coverage, and preventative care. This post will be about mental healthcare.


Mental healthcare is in a sad state in this country. Services for adults are next-to non-existent, and services for children under the age of 18 are severely limited. If you haven't read the essay, "I am Adam Lanza's Mother", only nominally about the Connecticut man who murdered a classroom of first graders with his mother's AR-15, you really should.

Let's take a look at what the candidates have to say on the subject.

Hillary Clinton has long been an advocate for mental health parity, meaning that health insurance plans would need to pay for mental health issues in much the same way as they pay for physical health issues. This led to the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act and to the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equality Act. Clinton's current work includes championing the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, which was written by Pennsylvania Republican Tim Murphy and Texas Democrat Eddie Johnson.

Clinton has also said that drug offenders should receive treatment for their mental illness.  

Gary Johnson wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, which has expanded mental health care to millions of Americans who would not have had access prior.  In a Reddit AMA, he told a man suffering from mental illness to start a new company, in order to earn enough to treat his mental illness.

Johnson believes that we should not lock up people suffering from drug addiction for their mental illness, and that needle exchange programs save lives,  

Jill Stein wants mental health care to be covered universally for every one from the moment of conception, by reducing the minimum age for medicare from 65 years old to to 0.

 Dr. Stein has also spoken about reducing the "culture of violence" by legalizing recreational drugs.

Now that we have looked at each candidate's position on mental health, next week, we will talk about affordability and coverage.

As an addendum, writing this blog in the style I described has been very difficult. The major networks are really only covering one candidate, between their reality shows and talk shows, and so I have to really dig to find any information on the other two candidates. I will continue to do my best to cover the candidates equally, but my source material doesn't make it easy.