Mental Health Advocates Urge Protest Against Forced Treatment Addition to Medicare Bill

[compsports]

I wanted to alert folks to this MIA article in which the House already passed the forced treatment addition.   Because the Senate is due to vote on this on Monday, please call your Senators to urge them to vote no.

 

 

An array of national mental health and disability advocacy groups joined together today, urging people to contact their senators in protest of a section of a bill rushed through the House of Representatives by voice vote yesterday. Section 224 of HR4302, up for a vote in the Senate on Monday, would subject people in crisis to forced treatment. “In its rush to fix a problem with Medicare, the House passed a bill including a highly controversial program, involuntary outpatient commitment, with no debate and no roll call vote,” said Raymond Bridge, public policy director of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery, “And it seems that the Senate may pass a version of the House bill including this troublesome provision on Monday.” “This legislation would eliminate initiatives that use evidence-based, voluntary, peer-run services and family supports to help people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses to recover,” said Daniel Fisher, M.D., Ph.D. “It would bring America back to the dark ages before de-institutionalization, when people with mental health conditions languished in institutions, sometimes for life.”

 

http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/03/mental-health-advocates-protest-spurious-forced-treatment-addition-medicare-bill/

 

CS