The best "Mental Health" Act would be the adoption of a single-payer system crafted to provide needed healthcare as a human right for all.

Mental health, dental care, eye care, long-term care -- all the services essential to a healthy life should be covered.

As a person with a mental illness, I welcome this legislation as a temporary stopgap until we demand and achieve single-payer!

I shall exercise my Vote on Mental Health by refusing to vote for any candidate who won't bring us a single payer healthcare system. Being feedstock for a corporate insurance maching just won't work anymore.

I too have a mental illness, that is shared by many members of my family. I agree that this bill is a good step, but in the final analysis, single payor is the only true solution to the problem that we face.

I am a mentally ill man who lives on SSI. This bill will not really affect me since my insurance is Medicaid. I of coarse think this bill is a good thing, but many insurance companies will simply take mental health care out of your plan if you have a chronic condition like mine. There is however a much bigger problem with Mental Health Care that this bill does not effect: The Choice of Treatment. The choices of treatments that exist now are very limited, and the recent University of Hull study showing that antidepressants have little to no effect when compared to placebos, in short they don't work, makes having a choice of treatment all the more important. Private Health insurance may provide slightly more choices than Medicaid, but I will share with you a summary of my Medicaid experience. I have been in Mental Health care since I was five. I have seen the system before Prozac and after. It is no surprise to me that the newer antidepressants don't work. I have tried all of them, most of the antipsychotics, some mood stabilizers, stimulants, and benzodiazepines. Not only did none of them help, but each of the newer medication hurt like hell. These are heavy drugs. I also cannot say I have ever seen these drugs work for others. They may work for a select few, but even thoughs I know who say they work are changing meds every 6 months (each time they change meds they swear it's working), some swear they are working but they still have the same problems and continuously end up in the hospital, some simply become blank. The reasons why so many feel the drugs are working when they may not be are numerous. First we want them to work soooo bad; when I first tried Prozac and the new antidepressants after years of analysis and therapy I wanted it to work more than anything; eventually I had to admit they were not working, but I kept taking new meds anyway because of the second reason. Psychiatrists are very manipulative and shaming, they will do anything to get you to believe these drugs work, or at least to get you to keep trying drugs with the promise and fear that one of these drugs HAS to work, and if you don't keep trying you may miss out on your only chance for relief. Third the drug companies have invested billions in a media campaign to make us believe these drugs work, including news segments. So prevalent has this belief become that if you are in the system and you are not on medication you are accused of not wanting to get better by other patients, parents, and mental healthcare workers. The final reason is that these drugs cause brain damage. In private psychiatrist refer to these drugs as a chemical lobotomy. So what is the alternative to these drugs? If you have health insurance, not many, if you have Medicaid, even less. There is Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT); unlike the 50's they now put you under and give you a muscle relaxant. A documentary called Shock is coming out showing that the new ECT is safe and effective; psychiatrists what to make it the new first line treatment for Depression. Unfortunately the long term effects are the same as they always were: loss of memory, brain damage, and at best only a few months of temporary relief. ECT is barbaric and has no place in medicine. I have seen friends robbed of their humanity, one even forgot who I was. Medicaid does not pay for Psychologists even if you are on SSI for a chronic mental disability. You can get a social worker therapist. If you can find a good one he/she can help you if you are a newbie, but for chronic sufferers they are not skilled enough. The only other treatments Medicaid pays for are Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT); both of which are essentially the same thing. These therapies are supposedly evidence based the same way antidepressants were supposed to be, but, just as antidepressants were tested by the drug companies that profit from them, CBT and DBT have only been tested by the people who created them, and who are in competition with psychodynamic therapists for government money, and ideological superiority; just as psychiatrists are in ideological competition with analysis, and rely on medications for their bread and butter. Also, these studies cannot evaluate things as untrackable as complex emotions. CBT and DBT can work well for certain types of symptoms in the hands of a good therapist, but if on Medicaid you will always get a therapist who will be working strait out of the workbook. This is bad because these are very inflexible therapies. You are expected to fit the therapy instead of it fitting you; it is one size fits all. It mainly consists of a continuous reassertion to think positively. Even though these therapies are only good for certain types of conditions those who practice them are more than happy to claim they work for all mental conditions so they can take the government money. Medicaid pays for nothing else except for inpatient care which only offers the aforementioned treatments plus totalitarianism. The other treatments that are out there, but not available to people on Medicaid, (not including rich people's mental hospitals) are psychodynamic psychologists with different specialties, and some alternative therapies. This is probably the best thing available, but it too is deeply flawed. There is of course exercise and healthy eating, but for people with mental illness eating at all is often a challenge. Social support also helps, but people with mental or emotional problems are more stigmatized than probably any other group. People from both the left and right see these invisible disabilities as weakness of character, and are very judgmental. There must be basic changes in how treatment is administered, but there are several short term solutions that can be instituted now. Medicaid must pay for the patient's choice of Psychologist and for any or all alternative and holistic treatments. Medicaid should also, when necessary, pay for a personal trainer for patients who are unable to effectively exercise on their own. A trainer could see patients 3 times a week to give them the instruction, structure, and support they need to see benefit from exercise. For those who have problems with food, food stamps should be able to pay for meals made by those nutritional meal companies that deliver them to you each day. Just as most neighborhoods have state funded senior centers they should also have centers for people on SSI or SSDI for mental and physical disabilities. Not places for therapy or support groups, but places with games and art supplies where people with disabilities can socially interact and make connections. They should also be open 24 hours or at least very late; people with mental disabilities often have serious sleep problems and may not be able to do 9-5 hours. Many mental hospitals should also become open hospitals. Their used to be many open hospitals in America, but today there is only one, the very expensive Austin Riggs. Open hospitals would give patients more freedom, and make them less authoritarian; this would help curb the abuse that inevitably happens in pretty much every mental ward. For patients who are in immediate danger of suicide closed units could still be used, but psychiatric care must get away from the attitude that they must stop suicide at any cost. They are determined to keep you alive even if they have to watch you while you go to the bathroom, but they care nothing about the quality of life. Greater long term changes to psychiatric and psychological care must be made, but these are things that could be done now to change the commercial authoritarian, torture chamber that is modern psychiatry and psychology into something that has the possibility to actually treat people instead of traumatizing them.

Here is a link to an article about the University of Hull Study:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/antidepressant-drugs-udontu-work-ndash-official-study-787264.html

Oh I forgot two of the most important things. SSI only pays $650 a month which is not enough to live on (it was cut by the Clinton Administration). For both the mentally disabled and the physically disabled, it must be raised significantly. Really it has to be almost doubled to be realistic. Also, again for both mentally and physically disabled people, there must be good low income housing; there is none now. Communal houses might be useful but not group homes which are degrading, and which take all your SSI. Single apartments would have to be available for those who can't live in groups. SSDI should also be raised, but that usually pays more. How much SSDI pays is variable on how much you made when you worked. If you didn't work enough you go on SSI.

Historically the disability community points the way to freedom thru needs of accessability. This is painfully obvious to all of us who are aware of the difference and bridge the gap to the differently abled. Ambivilance is not offspring of freedom loving people. So when I take antthing for granted in my many abled life, I am reminded by those close to me who are different about what is needed to include all.