NAMI: United States Gets a D in Mental Healthcare
The country as a whole was graded D. No states received an A grade, and only six (Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oklahoma) received a B. Eighteen states got C's, a whopping 21 got D's - and 6 states (Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming) got a failing grade - F.
The state where I live got a D - and that's an improvement from the F it got in 2006. This makes me feel extremely fortunate that I've never had to use the public healthcare system for treatment of my bipolar disorder. But it could happen to me. I could lose my health insurance, be unable to pay my current doctors' charges, and have to fall back on the state's resources. And given this report, that's a thoroughly frightening thought. NAMI found that since 2006, when they first graded the states, 14 states have improved their grades, 12 have gone down, and 23 stayed the same. The US as a whole got a D then, too. You can see your state's report card by clicking on it in the map.
Do you use your state's public healthcare system for treatment of your bipolar disorder? What's been your experience? ~Marcia
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Comments
In a dismal report earlier this year, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) graded each of the states’ public healthcare system for “the” mentally ill.
Curious representation.
How is our health care for “the” pregnant? “The” cancerous? I doubt I will ever see those abstractions in print.
Harold A. Maio, retired Mental Health Editor
khmaio@earthlink.net
Actually, it’s just a matter of good grammar. Take out the adjective “mentally,” and you have “system for the ill”; thus, the usage is quite correct. Whereas in your examples, both “pregnant” and “cancerous” are adjectives and couldn’t stand alone in that syntax.
I do bipolar seminars across the country regularly and I am amazed at how bipolar disorder is a square peg that doesn’t fit in the round holes of our treatment system. The suicide rate is so high (over 20%) because of the treatment options (none in some states?). A person who is agitated beyond human endurance cannot wait in the ER for several hours. CANNOT. And there is predjudice against people who are agitated, (not realizing they can’t help it). Some end up overdosing just to make it go away. There is NO psych wards in certain areas of the country, and it takes two weeks or more to see a psychiatrist. Hence the high suicide rate.