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Insanity and Guilt, Revisited
Rep. Tim Murphy
In May 2014, I wrote about a personal encounter with serious mental illness. At the time, there was some hope regarding the issue: Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), a practicing psychologist, had recently introduced a humane bill to reform our dysfunctional national mental health system. Murphy had worked tirelessly for over a year to research and craft the bill, and had secured bipartisan support. Unfortunately, I wrote at the time, the Democratic Party’s leadership was trying to scuttle the bill out of crass political opportunism.
Recent events gave me reason to re-read the piece. In the last 18 months, what has happened? Republicans expanded their majority in the House and now have a majority in the Senate. The bill at issue has a new number (H.R. 2646) and we can no longer blame Democrats for stalling.
The new chairman of the relevant committee is Rep. Fred Upton (R-CA), who I will always remember as the man who gave us the ban on incandescent lightbulbs. When he assumed his chairmanship, he rewarded Democratic intransigence by declaring that Murphy’s bill was too “controversial.” What made it controversial? Democratic Party opposition, of course. Murphy has made some minor changes to the bill but — while the problem remains and a well-crafted solution exists — it’s yet to be brought to a vote.
I concluded 18 months ago:
If Nancy Pelosi succeeds in killing the Murphy bill, there will be more shootings and more stabbings and more broken lives. And I will continue to think of Michael Laudor and Carrie Costello. But all of us should now also think of Nancy Pelosi, and the responsibility she and her caucus bear.
Now, it is the GOP that bears the responsibility. Will the Republican Party’s leadership abdicate policy and moral leadership on this issue, as it has on issues from Planned Parenthood to free markets, to the Ex-Im Bank? Or will it demonstrate that it is worthy to lead this nation and act?
Published in Domestic Policy, Healthcare, Law
I think every question you asked & every suggestion you made is answered bleaker in the affirmative, so let me just give an all-encompassing yes. Thanks for writing about this again–I’ve looked up some news pieces about the bill & the guy. The GOP, well, I’d better not say anything…
Son of Spengler: “Now it is the GOP that bears the responsibility. Will Republican Party leadership abdicate policy and moral leadership on this issue, as it has on issues from Planned Parenthood to free markets and the Ex-Im Bank? Or will it demonstrate that it is worthy to lead this nation, and act?”
By extrapolation one might see Boehner as a signpost pointing in a direction. If he is, it is a signal of what the House (at least) is willing do to. What is Boehner doing? He is ducking the fight.
S of S – thanks for bringing up this important issue. My wife used to conduct involuntary commitments and the current process is a mess. Walk around any major city to see the results as the clearly insane shuffle from block to block aimlessly all day long….and, hopefully, that is all they are doing
I just noticed that NRO has an excellent unsigned editorial today on H.R. 2646: http://www.nationalreview.com/murphy-helping-families-in-mental-health-crisis-act-good-legislation
Sounds a lot like the office…
SoS, it’s crass and disingenuous to talk about mental health right now. We are supposed to be having a national conversation about guns. Please stop with the distractions.
It is plain to see the mass shootings we’ve experienced these past years are a mental health issue. To a person, the killers are clearly disturbed people. But I hold little hope that our betters in DC will bother to address the actual problem so long as they can twist it to be about gun control.
What a shame. This situation so desperately needs to be fixed. I have learned so much about it from discussions here on Rico. Praying for success for this legislation.
I know nothing about the bill, but I don’t want to “reform our dysfunctional national mental health system”. I don’t want any kind of national mental health system. The problem starts with the word national. We need the individuals and their insurance companies to take responsibility, the counties or states to take on this chore, families and communities, too. By nationalizing it, it becomes a political tool and therefore the worst choice.
The centerpiece of the bill is relaxing certain HIPAA provisions so that families can get the information they need to help care for their loved ones. The bill is designed to place more power in the hands of families and local providers. The ones fighting this bill the hardest are representatives of federal bureaucracies that are slated to lose power and funding if the bill passes.
Good. Thanks.
Thanks for updating us on the bill. I hope it is finally acted upon.
I was thinking about your original post and the Murphy bill last night because I stumbled upon an article via the Drudge Report that says the Oregon shooter was, indeed, on psych meds. I can’t find the article now, but there are a lot of other articles saying the shooter had a history of some mental illness.
I also really want an investigation into the psych meds.
Just as the depression meds sometimes lead to actual suicide, some of the currently prescribed antidepressants lead to unbelievable violence.
These shootings may be easier to prevent than anyone would believe right now.
Do we know any from either side of both bodies in DC who read things here? Who read?
I am a huge fan of the Murphy bill. It is well designed and addresses a huge deficit in the care of mental illness. Thx for the update S of S! To
It’s hard for normal people to understand the mentally ill mind. Many mentally people seem very rational.
Ditto this!
They can count how many “clients” they’ll lose if reforms like this come down.
Here’s hoping the Ghost of Elections Yet to Come pops by sometime soon and rattles his chains over Rep. Fred’s head.
I am curious which antidepressants have been shown to increase unbelievable violence.
Results showing links between antidepressants and deteriorating behavior, like suicide, still seem tenuous and rather inconclusive. Of course, the FDA has to label for it, because the risk could be there, and the FDA is risk-averse. But sometimes risk-aversion also leaves one with a false impression of the net harms and goods. And at least one study shows that the drop in antidepressant prescriptions for youths prompted by the fear of causing them suicide has coincided (perhaps causally) with an increase in youth suicides.
Psychiatric medicines aren’t panaceas, obviously. On the contrary, they are rather poorly-understood drugs with nonobvious effects, and it’s notoriously difficult to find one that “works” for many patients suffering poor mental health.
Yet associations between antidepressants and suicide could be explained by antidepressants being unnecessary for mild depression, and most useful for severe depression, whose sufferers are most at risk for suicide anyhow. Or by the “clinical pearl” that suicide risk briefly increases when depression first lifts. Or by a pill, or the wrong pill, being a poor but easy substitute for the care someone really needs. Or…
Etc.
It is really getting on my nerves to check the headlines this week. Every time I look I see yet another Democrat calling for gun control.
I’m convinced the reason this illogical response is happening is because the psychiatric and psychological associations are all Democratic Party members. “We are part of the family. It’s not our fault. Don’t look at us.”
The psychiatrists are in complete control of our mental health system. They should be at the forefront calling for more resources for treating people with mental illness: “We have X patients, and we need X dollars and supervised-care settings.”
Thanks, SOS, great post.
Kudos to Tim Murphy for his hard work. The fact is, that there are, according to the powers-that-be, two major problems with his bill:
1) He makes provisions for the families of the mentally ill to be more involved and informed in the treatment of their mentally ill family member. This frightens many people, not only those in the entrenched bureaucracy, but many members of the public at large.
2) He wants to shift money away from “wellness” and “mental health” programs so that it can fund the people who are actually mentally ill. This means that a lot of money which is currently going to the above-mentioned entrenched bureaucracy would be diverted elsewhere.
Both these points are well-made in the NRO editorial you cite in comment #4.
And they are the centerpiece of American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System, which is an excellent book laying out the case that the existing ‘mental health’ system has failed miserably with respect to those most in need of care. As it certainly has.
Thank you for this post. The reality is, most mental health professionals have no interest in working with the mentally ill. From what I can tell, they have no interest in working with anyone who won’t automatically agree with them about everything, and those with severe mental illness are the most problematic in that regard. The psychological establishment exists to promote liberalism, and the psychologists I have encountered fell no obligation whatsoever to work with the genuinely ill, of which I am one. I am either schizophrenic or bi polar ( have never revived a definitive diagnosis) and I am absolutely horrified by what I have witnessed in my extensive experiences with mental health professionals.
I sent a note in support of H.R. 2646 to my congressman.
I prayed for Ms. Judithann Campbell, and for other folk I know with mental health issues.
I accomplished both in a little less than ten minutes, without leaving my comfy seat.
Ricochetti, please follow my good example in this matter.
Cheers.
Thank you, MJ Bubba :)
John, I went to send you a private message but I see you have PMs turned off. If you decide to turn them on, please PM me.
Here is why Rep. Tim Murphy’s legislation is so important.
Doug, thanks for the link. The author has subsequently written a book, which I hope to read.
MJBubba, well done.
For those with the time, energy, and inclination to go further, call your representative’s office, and ask to speak directly to the staffer who deals with mental health issues. Ask him or her where your representative stands. Tell him or her that you are watching how your representative votes, and that you want your representative to take leadership on this issue. Take the staffer’s email address and send the staffer a message a week later asking for an update. You are likely to have the greatest impact that way.
Yes, indeed. And this: Behind the yellow door, a man’s mental illness worsens.
If the “Michael” in the first story grows up into the man in the second, many will call his way a “lifestyle choice.”
We, a nation which doesn’t believe in ‘torture,’ a nation which believes that ‘we’re better than that,’ and that ‘we shouldn’t stoop’ to the depths’ that others do, have done everything possible to insure that some of our most vulnerable citizens are committed (pun intended) to lives of ever-downward-spiraling insanity, until, in many sad cases, the inevitable conclusion.
Those in the mental health system, those who should be caring for the mentally ill, are often the most culpable accomplices in keeping them that way, and in enabling their continuing, and worsening, insanity.
I know that any information that comes to our family about our fifty-year old mentally ill relative can only come, as it has for years, from one of four sources: the police, the hospital, the jail or the morgue.
So far, we’re on step three. Pray it doesn’t go any further.