HAPPY MIDTERM ELECTION DAY, FAM!

The U.S. 2022 midterm election is here and much like previous election cycles, there is quite a bit at stake. Abortion access, criminal justice reform, access to transgender health care are some of the immediate issues likely to be impacted one way or another dependent on who turns out to vote this cycle. Every elected official – from top federal officials to county commissioners and city council members – has influence on issues impacting people affected by mental health conditions directly or indirectly. Your vote matters.

As we’ve highlighted in previous newsletters, the US is facing a mounting mental health crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread economic anxieties. In recent years, over 20% of adults were experiencing a mental illness and millions of adults have reported serious thoughts of suicide.

According to a poll last month from the American Psychiatric Association (APA), four out of five (79%) adults say that the state of mental health in the U.S. is a public health emergency that merits more attention from policymakers and 71% say they are more likely to vote for a political candidate who makes an investment in mental health a priority.

Some candidates this cycle are responding directly to voters who are expressing their concern about the state of mental health in America. Last month, Colorado hosted a debate between incumbent Senator Michael Bennett and his opponent Joe O’Dea in the race’s first ever mental health forum. Both candidates agreed that mental health issues, particularly for young people, is at a crisis point in their state.

O’Dea said he would advocate for a federal program that would make it easier for people interested in working in mental health and substance abuse treatment to get jobs in the field at the same time they work toward college degrees. Employers could help pay for their education, he said.

Bennett discussed his “Suicide and Crisis Outreach Prevention Enhancement Act,” which would promote the national crisis line (988, which Bennett co-sponsored) and increase the number of crisis centers nationwide. “We’re facing an epidemic of mental health in Colorado and across this country as a result of an economy that for 50 years has worked incredibly well for the top 10% of Americans, but almost for nobody else,” Bennett said.

Voting has mattered in the past for those with mental illness

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy laid out his vision for “a wholly new emphasis and approach to care for the mentally ill.” This vision involved closing psychiatric hospitals and replacing them with a national network of community mental health centers. These centers, unlike the hospitals, would support and treat the formerly institutionalized so that they could live freely in their communities.

The first half of this vision was implemented quickly by lawmakers and health officials and thanks to this bill along with new and effective antipsychotic drugs and increased activism for patients’ rights, the number of people housed in large psychiatric hospitals fell by 95 percent between the 1950s and the 1990s.

Advocates of a community-based approach posed that even the sickest psychiatric patients deserved to live in their own communities and that they should be cared for in the least restrictive settings possible.

Kennedy’s plan was to build nearly 1,500 community mental health centers across the country, each of which would provide five services: community education, inpatient and outpatient facilities, emergency response and partial hospitalization programs serving as a single point of contact for patients seeking treatment.

Unfortunately, the second half of Kennedy’s vision stalled but Congress attempted to revive the it in 1980, with a bill that more than doubled the federal government’s investment in Kennedy’s original plan. President Jimmy Carter signed that bill into law, but President Ronald Reagan repealed it the following year.

In the end, less than half of the centers from Kennedy’s initial vision were ever built. Marginalized people continued to leave state psychiatric institutions but found no meaningful support. Many turned up in prisons and homeless shelters which is a trend continues to perpetuate today.

More on mental health + politics

• Conversations on Health: Mental Health Policy in the 2022 Midterm Elections

• Mental Health is Political (NYT)

• 10 Tips to Manage the Uncertainty and Stress of the Midterm Elections (ADAA)

That’s all for now. Today is big day. If nothing else, get out and vote!

See you next week(ish)!

<3

the here fam