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Non-Tech : Who Really Pays Taxes? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (480)	8/21/2000 1:34:24 PM
From: kvkkc1	Respond to of 666

Lizzie, don't have the answer to your question, but would like to see some factual information on the numbers of clinically documented mentally ill homeless. I believe it is another media sensationalized issue that is way overblown, but don't have the numbers either way.knc

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (480)	8/21/2000 1:58:19 PM
From: ztect	Respond to of 666

That's a very interesting issue. Don't know what the mix betw. State and Fed funding was or is, do know that even through HMO's mental health care gets squeezed. The large discharge of patients from State institutions partly due to medications helped create this situation becuase adequate follow care didn't occur and the medicines aren't all that they're made out to be. The institutions were warehouses that in many ways exacerbated mental health problems, and medicines largley facilitated and facilitate lower cost managed care that doesn't require lengthy long term diagnostic and psycho social therapies. "Happy pills" and chemical lobotomies are largely efficiency solutions in terms of controlling health care costs, and not finding underlying root causes. Moroever a person's civil liberties to confine him/her against his/her will unless these people pose a threat to others, doesn't give much latitude to make a person seek counseling. So eventually many such people end up in prison. Many with mental illness matriculate through the criminal justice systems where their problems are made worst. A lot of residivism crime and incarceration is due to these incarcerations without any treatment. However, one must note that over 95% of people who have or had mental health problems are NOT violent. The less than 5% that make for good tabloid television exacerbate the fears and misperceptions of people who may even have underlying physiological problems, or deeply rooted social problems, causing their mental health disturbances. The "disease" aspect associated in the brain may be as much a function of social stressors and physiological factors as genetic dispostions despite the prevelant brain chemistry theories that largely benefit pharmaceutical companies who have made a mutli-billion dollar business of finding a magic pill or"cure" ie. panacea. This is a very difficult problem since such people as the homeless and the mentally ill in prison and elsewhere don't receive any empathy like a cancer patient. Rather they engender fear due to sensationalism of the actions of a few. Program solutions that deal with these solving this large problem deal with where these problems manifest themselves the most. That is in further reform of health care, further reform of the criminal justice system , and the treatment of drug abuse as much as a health problem and not only a criminal problem, especially since substance abusers have mental health problems, and people with mental health problems are frequently substance abusers. This would necessitate a war on the soul rather than the war on drugs, and the political will and fortitude of leadership our country hasn't seen for a very VERY long time. Since leadership is now formulated in response to "focus" groups and public opinion polls, people who aren't constituents really don't have or will never have much of a voice. I know Tipper's record, and it simply is no where near enough, and Dubya compassion doesn't have enough points of light to form a path to follow. Anyway, off my soap box on this most difficult issue. z (spellin' not checked)