Our Health Policy Matters

Exactly a half century ago, in October, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Centers Act into law.  It affected two very different classes of people - people with mental illness and people with developmental disabilities. In many ways, it was a civil rights act, promising to replace large, segregated institutions with integrated, community-based services. It made a huge difference for people with developmental disabilities.  But for people with mental illnesses, its promise is unfulfilled and the dream sometimes feels like it is dying. When President Kennedy signed the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act on October 31st, he did so with optimism. The law specified that the new community mental health centers would offer four services – prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation or recovery – to people with mental illness.  And the result would be that all people, no ...

Exactly a half century ago, in October, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Centers Act into law.  It affected two very different classes of people - people with mental illness and people with developmental disabilities. In many ways, it was a civil rights act, promising to replace large, segregated institutions with integrated, community-based services. It made a huge difference for people with developmental disabilities.  But for people with mental illnesses, its promise is unfulfilled and the dream sometimes feels like it is dying. When President Kennedy signed the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act on October 31st, he did so with optimism. The law specified that the new community mental health centers would offer four services – prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation or recovery – to people with mental illness.  And the result would be that all people, no ...

When Senator George McGovern, who died this past weekend, decided to run for President, he did so as a World War II hero who opposed the Vietnam War.  A respected South Dakota senator, he helped galvanize anti-war sentiment among young people and ride it to the Democratic Party’s nomination in the summer of 1972. His election prospects that year were as remote as Senator Goldwater’s had been just eight years earlier.  From opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum, there was much to admire about both of them.  But they were also both too removed from the center of the political spectrum to be electable in the moderate America of those times. As a vocal McGovern supporter back in 1972, I have long wondered how he felt about the one thing I admired least about his political career – the moment when he let fear about mental illness alter the course of our public policy history. There is an excellent and recent brief story about this on the National Publ...

When Senator George McGovern, who died this past weekend, decided to run for President, he did so as a World War II hero who opposed the Vietnam War.  A respected South Dakota senator, he helped galvanize anti-war sentiment among young people and ride it to the Democratic Party’s nomination in the summer of 1972. His election prospects that year were as remote as Senator Goldwater’s had been just eight years earlier.  From opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum, there was much to admire about both of them.  But they were also both too removed from the center of the political spectrum to be electable in the moderate America of those times. As a vocal McGovern supporter back in 1972, I have long wondered how he felt about the one thing I admired least about his political career – the moment when he let fear about mental illness alter the course of our public policy history. There is an excellent and recent brief story about this on the National Publ...