As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Arnold: Cruel or Clueless?
The New York Times continues its coverage on shantytowns today, highlighting a Bushville in Fresno that has suddenly popped up. First of all, given that Los Angeles County has 70,000 homeless people and that number has remained durable for quite some time, I welcome the national media to the issue about the homeless but don't necessarily think that because this new class puts up tents (they do the same on LA's Skid Row, BTW) that somehow it's novel. The recession clearly has exacerbated this problem and brought it to new areas in the state and the country, but that doesn't mean homelessness didn't exist before.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that he has teamed up with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson to help the homeless and has lobbied the president to speed the flow of federal dollars to address the problem [...]
U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, in February announced that the city and county of Sacramento each are in line to receive $2.4 million in stimulus money to prevent homelessness.
The money will be managed by the city-county Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.
In addition, Proposition 63, the ballot measure voters approved in 2004 to provide mental health funding, will provide "a lot of help" for some of those living on the streets, the governor said.
That would be Prop. 63, the fund which the Governor and the legislature are trying to RAID through Prop. 1E, to the tune of $230 million a year diverted to other purposes. You can debate the pluses and minuses of that, but promising Prop. 63 funds to fight homelessness at the same time as running a campaign to take Prop. 63 funds away is either cruel or clueless.
What The Congress Is Doing Right (Yes, There Is Something)
I'm distressed by the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling, and the bailout bill is still fluid. But at the end of this session, the Congress is getting some good bills across the line.
After much wrangling from Senate hold king Tom Coburn, the Senate finally dislodged the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act and got it passed. This would set up a cold case unit to investigate crimes and injustices of the Civil Rights era.
The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity Act passed the House by overwhelming margins yesterday. This would prohibit insurance agencies from limiting benefits for mental health ailments. Right now only 1/3 of all Americans suffering from mental illness receive adequate treatment, and this bill would go a long way to altering that. More here.
Ends unfair, arbitrary interest rate increases, by requiring ample notice before rate hikes and permitting lenders to raise rates on existing balances only if minimum payments are more than 30 days late (except for increases caused by changes in stated variable and introductory offers)
Ends penalties on cardholders who pay on time, like charging interest on already repaid debt
Protects consumers from due date gimmicks by requiring credit card companies to mail bills 25 days (instead of 14) before the due date
Ends the credit card practice of applying consumer payments to lower interest debt first
This also passed overwhelmingly.
I'll withhold judgment to see what they do with this piece of garbage bailout bill, but Congress is not entirely useless.
Actually the number is probably higher - 22,000 identified themselves explicitly as vets. Over 55,000 called the special line set up through the VA in its first year of operation. Some are friends and family of vets, which makes sense, as watching someone close struggle with PTSD or worse must be unbearable. These statistics are gruesome.
Calls to the VA’s hotline more than doubled this calendar year going from a total of about 21,000 in January to more than 55,000 by the end of June, averaging about 250 calls a day.
Out of 55,469 calls that the VA’s suicide hotline has received in the last year, 22,044 callers identify themselves as veterans. Callers can remain anonymous if they choose. About 3,000 (2,966) identified themselves as a family member or friend of a vet. Six hundred (621) said they were on active-duty. The VA rescued 1,221 callers with emergency responders while 2,911 received help in what the VA calls a “warm transfer.” More than 4,500 (4,592) callers were referred to a VA suicide prevention coordinator in their local area. The VA says they don’t know of any individuals who committed suicide after using the 1-800-number. A spokesperson for the VA told CBS News that “there are none that we are aware of that have occurred when they called the hotline.”
We simply don't know that answer, and I would gather that it's probably too hopeful.
This hotline was set up in 2007, after Democrats like Harry Mitchell urged its implementation after seeing the sorrowful statistics on veteran suicides.
A recent RAND Corporation study found that nearly 20 percent, or about 300,000 veterans out of the approximately 1.64 million who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently suffer from major depression or post traumatic stress disorder. A news report last November by CBS News Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian discovered that in 2005 more than 6,200 veterans had committed suicide at a rate twice that of non-veterans. A series of internal VA emails, which were exposed earlier this year, confirmed CBS’ findings as well as revealed that about 1,000 vets seeking care from the VA attempt suicide every month for a total of about 12,000 a year.
(CBS and NPR have been very good at tracking the story of veteran suicides)
So now we have 20%, at a minimum, of our soldiers coming home with PTSD or some mental health issue, and around 2% driven to thoughts of suicide, 1% driven to actually attempt it, and about half that succeeding in the attempt. That is an epidemic.
The VA's efforts to offer help to troubled veterans is fine, but if they diagnosed these cases during soldier's tours and on discharge rather than hiding the scope of the problem, they wouldn't have to hire hundreds of mental health professionals as call screeners to inadequately address the problem on a suicide hotline. This is a textbook example of how early detection in health treatment saves lives and money. But the VA's modus operandi is to avoid diagnoses at the outset, because then we would have to factor the human toll into the real cost of war.
It's really heartbreaking but there is a better way which requires minimal competence at the VA.
The whole point of the Guantanamo prison was to create a space not on US soil that the Administration could make the case was not subject to the auspices of US law. As emptywheel notes, that is now inoperative. The SCOTUS ruling stating that prisoners at Gitmo have habeas rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention eliminates any need for the Guantanamo prison.
The deciding issues for Gitmo are that the US has control over the territory of the Gitmo base, as well as complete control of the detainees. The ruling, Gutierrez said, left open that Habeas would apply to detainees held elsewhere, but does not do that explicitly. The CCR attorneys on the call did say that the ruling prevented the government from creating "law-free zones" in which they rule, but without the rule of law.
There's still a lot that's up in the air, like where these habeas hearings would be heard and how the government will react (maybe by starting massive usage of military commissions to charge prisoners), but the ruling on Guantanamo is clear. It's unnnecessary.
Sadly, that revelation comes too late for most of those held there.
Over two-thirds of the detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison are suffering from or at risk of mental problems because they are kept isolated in small cells with little light or fresh air, according to Human Rights Watch.
In a report entitled "Locked Up Alone: Detention Conditions and Mental Health at Guantanamo," the group says 185 of the 270 detainees at the U.S. military prison for terrorism suspects are housed in facilities similar to "supermax" prisons.
They spend 22 hours alone in cramped cells, have very limited contact with other human beings and are given little more than the Koran to occupy themselves, said the report, which is based interviews with government officials and attorneys.
Detainees held in this manner include many that have not been charged with crimes and have already been cleared for release or transfer, according to the report.
The U.S. government has photographic evidence that a Guantanamo Bay inmate was tortured with a knife after being taken to Morocco by U.S. forces, a British human rights group said Tuesday.
Reprieve said their client, Binyam Mohamed, had his genitals slashed repeatedly with a doctor's scalpel while in custody in Morocco after he was flown there from Pakistan by American officials in 2002. It also said his U.S. captors later took pictures of the abuse to show authorities that his wounds were healing.
It's really not enough to mount a campaign to end future practice of torture in the next Administration, although that is of course important. There needs to be continued investigations into how this started and who was responsible, and those responsible absolutely must be brought to justice. John Ashcroft, John Yoo, William Haynes, David Addington and Doug Feith all will be sitting before Congressional committees in the next few weeks. Whether it's through the appointment of a special counsel in an Obama Administration, or tracking down anyone involved with authorizing torture when they go abroad and can be charged under international war crimes statutes, justice must out. A truth and reconciliation commission is the best method, but whatever the case, those who betrayed American values and shamed themselves through their actions cannot be allowed to drift free, only to crop up in some successive Republican Administration. As Richard Clarke put it:
I just don't think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let - - pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 American dead and 25,000 Americans grievously wounded. And they will carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives.
Some of the greatest legacies, costs and tragedies of war often go unseen and unexamined. Every day hundreds of thousands of homeless veterans sleep on the streets. PTSD and other maladies go untreated and lead to breakdowns of individuals and families. And now, a report from as psychiatric researcher suggests that you can double the deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan if our pathetic record on mental health care continues.
The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.
It's a problem of access and a problem of lack of consideration of mental health as a serious challenge.
Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven't provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington.
Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post- traumatic stress disorder or depression, and only half of them receive treatment. About 1.6 million U.S. troops have fought in the two wars since October 2001, the report said. About 4,560 soldiers had died in the conflicts as of today, the Defense Department reported on its Web site.
You're talking about 4,500 Americans who have served their country susceptible to pain and suffering and death from self-inflicted wounds. And the Pentagon did NOT dispute the figures.
And look, the future for those with untreated PTSD is not bright even if they don't commit suicide. The disorder makes it hard to hold a job, relate to family and friends, and generally lead a normal life. Maybe 300,000 returning soldiers are at risk.
Some things in life are hard. But getting the number of vets who get minimally adequate treatment over 50% is not one of them. You train the doctors. If those treatments cost more, you provide the money. You do what you need to do to make sure that when someone walks in the door looking for help, s/he finds it.
It's also not that hard to think of ways of raising the number of vets who actually seek help above 50% of those who need it. I think there are good reasons why soldiers should not have the same expectations of confidentiality as civilians, especially during wartime. (We really, really do not want soldiers who are actively psychotic, for instance. Likewise, soldiers with persistent homicidal fantasies.) But as of now, if they are still in the military, they have to deal with the knowledge that their command will find out that they have sought counseling, unless they seek counseling outside normal military structures, which is (I believe) forbidden. Many of them believe that this will affect their careers, and while I'm sure some of them are wrong, I'm equally sure that others are right.
We know how to treat people suffering from PTSD, too. There is research in the area that needs to be advanced. I don't need to tell you - Ilona Meagher has told this story repeatedly. What's lacking is the political awareness of the severity of the issue. And Thomas Insel has provided it.
Moreover, this must be factored into the costs of future wars. When we head 10, 20, 30 years down the road and have another generation of homeless and mentally ill veterans on our streets, and the question is raised of another pre-emptive war where the evidence is sketchy and the rationale suspect, will anyone add to the debate "You're consigning tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of our sons and daughters to a life of endless suffering, even suicide" without expanding our commitment to mental health treatment, which could be part of a more expansive health care system in general, one that would pay for itself and cover our citizens at far higher levels than we currently do. We're conditioned to think about the defense budget as only weapons systems and private contractors. THIS is the defense budget too. In fact, it's the only unfunded part.
There's almost nothing left in this country that isn't in crisis, but veteran's mental health care most certainly is. This demands immediate attention.
This is the second time in as many days that John W. McCain has dismissed the real concerns of real people who are struggling, suffering and dying in service to policies he wholeheartedly supports.
You might remember that McCain threw out a concept for a summer gas tax holiday to ease the burden on those paying high prices at the pump (a buck-eighty at a time for a 10-gallon tank... why, that'll end poverty in our time!). It was roundly criticized for providing little to no stimulus for working families, especially when contrasted with his desire to massive cut corporate tax rates. It'd also eliminate every highway construction job in America for three months and cause a spike in gas prices in September right before the election. So to say it was an unserious proposal is pretty on the mark.
I think psychologically, and a lot of our problems today are psychological, confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, the ability to keep our own home, this might give them a little psychological boost. Let's have some straight talk, it's not a huge amount of money. A little psychological boost, that's what I think it would help.
It must be comforting to the single mother who can't survive on the minimum wage, or the steelworker who just got laid off, that they were offered a psychological boost. Because that's really the whole problem, right? Apparently McCain is taking the Green Lantern theory of geopolitics into the economic arena. Since he analogizes everything to a basic contest of will, it makes sense. We're apparently going to fight the economy through steely-eyed resolve, and improve people's lives through sheer force of command. Never mind the structural inequality problem, or the deregulation that led to a crumbling financial marketplace, or the credit crunch which has led to decreased consumer spending and a wave of bankruptcies, or the massive uptick in foreclosures (I love how McCain thinks the ability to keep one's own home is a "psychological problem" and not, you know, an "I don't have the cash" problem). It is the height of condescension to write off economic struggles as nothing more than something going on inside the heads of the unwashed masses.
I'll tell you what, though. McCain's right about one thing. The country is experiencing major psychological problems. Only thing is that they come from hundreds of thousands of sick veterans who were traumatized during his endless war in Iraq.
Some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries, a new study estimates.
Only about half have sought treatment, said the study released Thursday by the RAND Corporation.
"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, the project's co-leader and a researcher at the nonprofit RAND.
"Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation," she said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The 500-page study is the first large-scale, private assessment of its kind — including a survey of 1,965 service members across the country, from all branches of the armed forces and including those still in the military as well veterans who have left the services.
Its results appear consistent with a number of mental health reports from within the government, though the Defense Department has not released the number of people it has diagnosed or who are being treated for mental problems. The Department of Veterans Affairs said this month that its records show about 120,000 who served in the two wars and are no longer in the military have been diagnosed with mental health problems. Of the 120,000, approximately 60,000 are suffering from PTSD, the VA said.
We're going to see deeply disturbed Iraq and Afghan war vets on our streets for decades. It's the residual cost of an unnecessary war that did not make us any safer. McCain's present to them is to deride the question of the initial invasion as an academic argument, and by describing the very real economic pain they feel as just "psychological." The fact that he wants to throw military families out of their housing is just a cherry on top.
Somehow, after this set of statements, we're not all talking about how McCain is an elitist. With this kind of corrupt thinking, I can tell you he's certainly not elite.
UPDATE: Barack Obama, of course, wants to give veterans the care and respect they deserve, and also pull our troops out of a dangerous and counter-productive situation in Iraq, just like a SNOB!!!!1!
The House and the Senate racked up a couple victories this week. The House passed the long-awaited Wellstone Mental Health And Addiction Equity Act. This would allow for parity in how insurers cover mental health and addiction treatment as compared to physical health treatment. The bipartisan vote was 268-148. Considering that our troops can't even get mental health on the battlefield, the need for mote mental health professionals is urgent. But by ensuring that this treatment must be covered, it'll create a good incentive for industry, research and potential breakthroughs. You should be covered if your damaged organ is your brain as surely as if it's your arm. Here's CA-42 House candidate Ron Shepston on the personal side of this:
My brother has been diagnosed with a mental illness but won’t tell us what it was. Before she passed away, my mom was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic so this issue is very close to home for me. Mr. Miller’s complete disregard for the consequences of marginalizing those with mental illness in an ill-conceived pursuit of economic nirvana displays a scary callousness so characteristic of Republican members of Congress. Given all the facts Americans would make the decision that the kind of society they want to live in would be one which considered those who struggle with mental illness in while contributing to society. Republicans’ only hope is to obscure the facts.
And the Senate approved by an overwhelming margin an overhaul to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, boosting the annual budget and revamping facilities, banning lead in all children's products, and raising fines for non-compliance. You'll recall that the acting head of the CPSC asked NOT to give her more money to do her job. But the drumbeat of toxic products from overseas, particularly China, made it impossible to stand by idly. The Republicans tried to water down the bill through a series of amendments that were rejected, and they should have those votes draped around their necks in their re-election campaigns.
In addition to these passages, the House is trying to overturn the horrid EPA decision denying a waiver to California for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and three powerful chairmen in the House are calling for a halt to telecom immunity in the face of a new whistleblower revelation that communications were going directly into the NSA through a special circuit. Maybe we've turned a corner.
Advocates Sue The Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator
You may remember that in August, Gov. Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto pen to cancel $55 million in funding for the treatment and care of mentally ill homeless people.
If you don't remember it, shame on you. It should be the only thing you think of when you think of this governor. He should be forever known as the "Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator."
The claim was that Prop. 63, passed by the voters, adequately funded this need, and so the dedicated funding that passed the legislature as AB 2034 could be eliminated. That's not true. What was actually going on was that the governor was trying to limit political damage by cutting funding for people who don't vote and therefore aren't of his concern.
Advocates for the mentally ill filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger subverted the will of voters when he eliminated a $55-million program for the homeless mentally ill -- a program he himself had touted as a success.
The suit asks a judge to restore the eliminated funding, order the state to continue paying for the program and declare that the governor acted illegally -- an important provision, the advocates said, in establishing precedent for future disputes over mental health system funding.
The suit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court, chosen because the plaintiffs include several mentally ill people in the county who credit the program with improving their lives -- helping them kick a drug habit, for instance, or move from the streets into their own apartment.
Allow me to file an amicus brief:
The Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator is a callous, small man.
Now we know why Tancredo seems so, well, crazy. It's because he likely is.
Last year, it was reported that in 1970, after Tancredo's student deferments ran out, he appealed his 1-A draft status, which would have put him at the top of the list for draft eligibility during the Vietnam War.
Tancredo said he didn't remember it that way. But he said he was given a 1-Y status, which put him at the bottom of the list, when he reported that he had been treated for mental illness as a teenager.
Tancredo said he was diagnosed with depression when he was 16 or 17 and received medication for five years for panic attacks and bouts of anxiety and depression.
It's all so clear now.
Turns out Tancredo voted against increasing mental health services for returning veterans. He was one of only 39 Representatives to do so.
Maybe he thinks they should have gotten a cushy way out of the war in the first place like he did?
Steve Lopez Would Like To Award The Certificate of Merit
Today's column in the LA Times takes the Governor to task for his unconscionable cut of homeless services that were working and saving money, in favor of a tax loophole for Dick Ackerman's yachting pals. Lopez has spent lots of time on the streets of Skid Row, and gotten to know the homeless people that struggle to survive down there. One of them, Bill Compton, died Monday, and it's grimly ironic that this happened at the same time that the program inspired by his successful move off the streets had its funding cut.
Bill Compton's Project Return helped pave the way for AB 2034, which, until its funding was cut by Schwarzenegger last week, was keeping nearly 5,000 people off the streets of California with a smart mix of housing and all the necessary support services.
The governor's staff has argued that the program can be funded with other revenues, such as money from the voter-approved Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63). But state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, who introduced AB 2034 when he was in the Assembly, said the latter ploy is both illegal and a subversion of voter intent.
"I was sick to my stomach for two days," said Steinberg, who believed until last week that the governor would be on his side, particularly since the program has substantially reduced hospitalization, incarceration and criminal justice costs for its participants.
Lopez then visited the Marina del Rey yacht club and did a little reporting about what was kept in the budget at the expense of getting homeless people off the streets:
If the governor was looking for savings, he could have taken his scalpel to an estimated $45-million tax break for purchases of yachts, planes and RVs.
To find out just how the break works, I called a yacht company in Marina del Rey. A sales rep told me I would have to buy the boat outside of California, but there's a loophole available in that regard. Technically, he said, if I took ownership of the boat three miles off shore, I'd be out of the state.
In other words, if I wanted to buy a $100,000 sailboat, I would sign the contract at the shop in Marina del Rey and then navigate around the tax bite with a little vacation.
"We would effect delivery out of state, three miles out, with a hired skipper who would take you out," the salesman explained. If I then sailed down to Mexico for 90 days, I'd avoid the sales tax of $8,250.
That's roughly the cost, Van Horn told me, of keeping someone in the AB 2034 program for a year, if you count the matching Medi-Cal funds.
May Bill Compton rest in peace.
This is why Dick Ackerman - and Arnold Schwarzenegger - deserve the certificate of merit for being rich and not homeless. The creativity with which they engineered yet another tax cut for the wealthy while dismissing those who are in vital need of help must be recognized with some sort of award. There will be a special place in the afterlife for those who put this together. I won't say where.
This will be faxed to Sen. Ackerman's office today:
CERTIFICATE OF MERIT
The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless (NCYCWHTH) proudly bestows this award upon State Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine), who has the courage and foresight to be a yachting enthusiast and not a mentally ill homeless person, and is therefore eligible for a major tax break instead of having his social services eliminated. As an organization of yachters who will also benefit from the same tax cut to the tune of $45 million dollars, coincidentally almost the same amount that would fund the rehabilitation program for mentally ill homeless people, we applaud this setting of the real priorities for our state. Sen. Ackerman has been a leader in the twin fields of yachting and not being homeless for many years, and we are pleased to award this certificate today. We ask you to be the keynote speaker at The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless clam bake in Tustin later this year. After all, there wouldn't be an organization this strong without you.
Sincerely, David Dayen Executive Director, The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless
You can send this too: Capitol Office fax: (916) 445-9754 District Office fax: (714) 573-1859
Here's some trivia about State Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman which may shed some light on the late round of budget cuts for social services. No, Ackerman's not a mentally ill homeless person, but he is a yacht owner.
Several lawmakers at the center of the budget dispute did not return phone calls or could not be reached. They included Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine -- a yacht owner who pushed to ease the tax burden on owners of yachts, planes and RVs.
An Ackerman spokesman said the senator was unavailable.
Here's a little more on this supposedly unnecessary mental health program, cleaved for the benefit of yachting aficianados everywhere:
It has served 13,000 people since November 1999. There are about 4,700 participants today. Among those enrolled as of January, there were 81% fewer days of incarceration, 65% fewer days of psychiatric hospitalization and 76% fewer days of homelessness compared with their pre-enrollment days.
Rusty Selix, executive director of the California Council of Community Mental Health Agencies -- like Steinberg, a Proposition 63 coauthor -- said the cost of incarceration can be six times higher than the cost of enrolling someone in the mental health program.
"Rehabilitation costs money. But it's worth it," said Adrienne Sheff, director of adult services at the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center in Van Nuys. Los Angeles County receives nearly a third of the state funds through AB 2034 and serves 1,700 people.
This program was designed to lessen the cost of those homeless who eat up emergency services - like the guy who showed up at San Diego ERs 87 times in a calendar year. Ultimately this move, done purely to satisfy short-sighted bean-counters, will end up costing the state far more. But that burden will be placed on municipalities and local governments, not the state coffers. Making the bean-counters - and yacht owners like Dick Ackerman - very, very happy.
OK, time for a little role-play. You're the post-partisan governor of a large state. The state budget comes into your hands with cuts almost to the bone, but you promised an additional $700 million and just don't know what to do. Who's going to get the shaft?
The Governor used his line item veto to cut the entire funding nearly $55 million for the AB 2034 housing program that serves over 4,700 adults with severe mental health needs, all of whom were homeless and frequently hospitalized or incarcerated before getting into the program. The Governor said in his veto message deleting the funding that:
"...while I support the goals of the program, this reduction is necessary to limit program expansions and to help bring ongoing expenditures in line with existing resources. To the extent counties find this program beneficial and cost-effective, it can be restructured to meet the needs of each county’s homeless population using other county funding sources, such as federal funds, realignment funds, or Proposition 63 funds. I am reducing Schedule (6) to eliminate the $12,000,000 legislative augmentation for the 5 percent rate restoration for mental health managed care. This technical veto is consistent with the legislative action taken in [Budget] Item 4440-103-0001."
Mental health advocates say that the immediate effect of the funding cut by the Governor could result in thousands of those people in the program being forced back on the streets at risk of hospitalization and incarceration... The actual outcome of these programs depend on response of local mental health agencies and the Department of Mental Health - but advocates say the cut seeks to supplant funding from the landmark Proposition 63 Mental Health Services Act - funding that was meant they say only for new community based programs - and specifically not meant to fund existing programs.
This is a bait and switch we've seen before by budgetary bean counters. Dedicated funding that's supposed to go ON TOP of budget outlays ends up being the only funding source. So the will of the voters is completely overturned; instead of supplementary mental health funding, Prop. 63 becomes the sole funding.
There were some other cuts, including $6.3 million that would have gone toward the California Discount Prescription Drug Program. But the mentally ill homeless cuts were the most drastic. And it once again shows that those with the softest voice end up getting hit the hardest.
UPDATE: State Senator Darrell Steinberg, who authored AB 2034, the bill whose funding was eliminated by the Governor's budget cut, is shrill.
"The program provides over 4,500 homeless Californians living with mental illness with permanent housing, where they can regularly receive medical and psychiatric treatment and job counseling. The program has been wildly successful according to the Department of Mental Health, reducing the number of days spent homeless by 67 percent, increasing the number of days working full-time by 65 percent, and reducing the number of days incarcerated by 72 percent.
"This is a program that works, that saves the state money in incarceration costs and that humanely treats a population that usually gets short shrift in Sacramento," Steinberg said. "I'm extremely disappointed that the Governor used his veto power in a way that punishes the least among us."
"Steinberg noted that the Governor chose to keep in the budget a $45 million tax break for yacht, private plane and recreational vehicle owners. Under the tax plan requested by Republican lawmakers, luxury vehicle owners can avoid paying sales taxes on purchases if they keep the vehicles out of California for just 90 days after purchase. According to the Legislative Analyst's Office, opening the loophole costs Californians $45 million a year.
"That's the state of California's budget: $45 million in tax relief for yacht owners will stay while $55 million to save thousands of homeless mentally ill is being sacrificed," Steinberg said. "It's wrong morally. It's wrong economically."
You would think that a governor would try to step in on July 16 when a budget is due July 1. And you would think he would be doing everything he can to manage the prison crisis given the rapidly approaching deadline when judges may cap the number of inmates. But you're just not post-partisan (or lazy as hell, you choose).
last week closed with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attention thousands of miles east as he ventured to Florida for a turn before the cameras and a $25,000-per-table Republican party fundraiser.
To Capitol insiders, the trip was the latest troubling evidence that despite the many big issues before him, the governor's interest in the nuts and bolts of governing has ebbed. Splashy announcements remain his trademark, but after the cameras pack up, Schwarzenegger has often not followed through. As a result, key parts of his agenda are foundering.
I think my biggest problem with those paragraphs is the word "ebbed." When was he EVER interested in governing? Sure, he likes magazine covers, and getting to wear anything with the California state seal on it, but actually GOVERNING. Not his style.
The governor waited until July 9 to bring the four legislative leaders into his office for a "Big 5" budget meeting — the forum he and other governors have used to keep negotiations moving. The leaders from both parties emerged to announce that little got done. No more meetings have taken place.
"We're all starting to say, 'Mr. Governor, phone home,' " said state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). "We've got a budget impasse. We need you to engage."
Republicans too are warning Schwarzenegger that his legacy is at stake.
"He clearly has a case of wanderlust," said Bill Whalen, a Republican political consultant. "While it is good and swell to go around the world and talk about global warming, being governor of California is very much a pothole job. It is about dealing with matters both large and small."
The Republicans are obviously being willfully moronic about the budget, claiming that they don't have to show what $2 billion dollars in programs must be cut but just that it has to happen. The Governor, however, might be even worse, showing no leadership at all in sleepwalking through Sacramento, stopping to pause at wildflowers while the impasse continues. You'd think he'd be embarrassed at this, just like you'd think he's be embarrassed at trying to cut mental health services for the homeless (actually, he probably had nothing to do with that, I'll bet a staffer typed it up). But then you wouldn't be as post-partisan and awesome as the Governator.
Dan Walters wrote a story today saying that governance is the overriding issue in California. That certainly becomes a lot tougher when there isn't a governor.
It was always assumed that the reasons so many contractors have been used in the occupation of Iraq is that it's a sop to the Halliburtons of the world. Another unexplored side effect is that the veteran's health care system becomes less burdened with caring for hundreds of thousands more shell-shocked soldiers, saving billions for the federal treasury. The other side of that is that the contractor employees, who participate in the same war zone and feel the same effects, get thrown into the wasteland of the private for-profit health care system, where their treatment is woefully inadequate, as the great T. Christian Miller explains in a classic LA Times investigation. For all its faults, this is why I still subscribe to the Times, because you can get in-depth studies of the margins of the American condition.
Samuel Walker saw combat in Iraq firsthand: He was splattered with human flesh and shrapnel in a dining hall when a suicide bomber blew himself up just a few feet away.
When Walker got back to the U.S., he brought some of the battlefield home with him. He heard phantom screams in broad daylight, smelled gunpowder that wasn't there. A loud noise would send him into a defensive crouch. He'd been eating French fries in the mess hall at the time of the blast, and the sight of a McDonald's restaurant now brought back violent memories.
Two doctors diagnosed Walker with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, directly related to his close encounters with violence in Iraq.
But Walker was not a combat soldier. He was a civilian recreation supervisor for KBR, the largest contractor in Iraq. And instead of getting the medical and counseling help he sought, Walker, a U.S. Army veteran, found himself caught in a morass of red tape and rejected insurance claims.
A Times investigation of a taxpayer-financed insurance system, based on reviews of scores of cases, has found a pattern of repeatedly blocked claims for treatment of psychological injuries sustained by civilian workers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The private system isn't set up to handle psychological distress like PTSD. It's bad enough that our soldiers aren't getting the care they deserve for the soul-shattering effects of combat; these contractor employees can't even come close to getting the attention and treatment they need.
Though contractors claiming psychological problems made up about 4% of nearly 1,400 serious reported injuries from 2003 to 2005, such workers accounted for 13% of the cases fought out in courtrooms.
In fighting claims, the insurance companies have relied on doctors with questionable expertise, according to court records and claimants' attorneys.
In one case, an insurance company psychiatrist who specialized in pharmacological research broadly dismissed psychology as "baloney." In another, a psychologist hired by insurance giant American International Group, or AIG, for his supposed expertise in PTSD had seen only 10 to 15 cases in a decade of practice.
The companies have disputed some cases in which their own doctors determined that workers were suffering psychological damage, court records show.
Simply put, the insurance industry will fight tooth and nail against doing its job. Every battle they win saves them millions, and they can weather a protracted lawsuit far more than an individual who is suffering. As long as they can stop providing any money to people in need, they come out on top. The inhumanity of it all is just devastating.
In the interim, the worker's compensation system for contractors working in foreign areas should be overhauled as long as these workers are forced to toil in combat zones. But this is happening in the larger context of the overall health care debate. And while I think the insurers will fight as hard as they can to maintain the status quo, and consequently their existence, ultimately I do think they will lose and we will see universal single payer health care in this country before long. Because you cannot give the image to anyone in this country of a PTSD sufferer back from Iraq having to go to court to get his insurer to pay off on their coverage, and have anyone look at that image think that this is the best we can do.
Let me offer the brief statement that, if a college student has been in trouble with police for stalking women and had definitive mental health problems and suicidal tendencies and was deemed a threat to himself and others, he maybe shouldn't be allowed to walk into a store and purchase two guns as easily as he did.
Let me also offer the statement that, if the same same student goes on a mass killing spree and in between shootings sends videos and writings and pictures to NBC News, it would probably behoove that news organization to NOT run them on their air, essentially validating the aims of a twisted mind who could easily spawn copycats if they knew their words, too, could make it onto the teevee.
This is a must-read piece by Steve Lopez today on the makeup of our state's prison population.
In the ongoing flap over prison overcrowding in California and what to do about it, little consideration has been given to inmates such as Stephan Lilly.
I wrote about the Los Angeles man late last year, when his conviction on charges stemming from a scuffle with a security guard were counted as a third strike. Despite a years-long battle with schizophrenia, and the fact that one of the three strikes was a threat that involved no physical contact, Lilly got 25 to life.
California's prisons are jammed with thousands of mentally ill inmates who didn't get help before their incarceration and aren't likely to get much while locked up. Not only is that like a chapter out of the Dark Ages, but the high rate of repeat crimes among parolees is costing taxpayers a fortune.
Hear, hear. Why are we sending people who need medical treatment to rot in jail? Why are these mentally ill people, who make up 1 out of every 5 inmates, given little or no treatment while incarcerated?
Fortunately, Sen. Darrell Steinberg wants to do something about it.
Tomorrow, state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento, will introduce a bill that calls for a complete overhaul of mental health care behind bars, with the goal of putting a big dent in both the overcrowding problem and the high recidivism rates.
"I would argue very strongly that it's the missing element of corrections reform," Steinberg said. How can you talk about getting a handle on overcrowding, he asks, without doing something about the fact that an estimated 20%-25% of the state's 170,000 inmates are bipolar, schizophrenic, clinically depressed or otherwise afflicted?
You want to build something in this state? Build more mental hospitals. Bring in more psychologists and psycho-therapists. Build something that will help permanently reduce the impact on the prison system.
Please read this article. It's a damn shame that most legislators are so obsessed with law and order that they won't take the simple steps necessary to relieve this crisis and move the state forward.
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