January 31st is the Last Chance!

On February 1, 2006, the House of Representatives will vote on S. 1932, the draconian budget-cuts the Senate forestalled in a last-minute maneuver before Congress adjourned (see the Bazelon Center’s December 23 Alert). If approved by the House as it stands, S. 1932 will set the 2006 federal budget for Medicaid and other programs and gravely harm millions of Americans with mental illnesses.

National Mental Health Call Congress Day

House members need to know that S. 1932 would punch a huge hole in the safety net on which millions of men, women and children with mental disabilities rely and would ultimately cost taxpayers much more.

Tell your Representative to vote NO on S. 1932.

Is your Representative on the target list of those who might be persuaded to reject S. 1932?  If so, pick up the phone between now and January 31st and call the number on the list at the end of this alert.

If your Representative isn’t on the target list, call him or her through the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. (To see how your Representative voted on the budget bill on December 19, go to http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll670.xml.)

Give your name and address (to show that you’re a constituent) and ask your Representative to vote “NO” on S. 1932.

• Remind your Representative that Medicaid is a lifeline for millions of Americans who need mental health care. By covering a broad range of critical services—services often not covered by private insurance—Medicaid enables people with mental illnesses to recover in their homes and communities.

• Explain that by reducing access to community-based mental health care, S. 1932 would consign many more people to more expensive emergency care and hospitalization. Federal and state governments will face much higher costs.

Specific problems are described in our December 20 summary of the conference report. Unless radically amended, the Medicaid proposals would:

• Deprive people with serious mental illnesses of desperately needed services, Many would be forced into health coverage modeled on private insurance, with extremely limited mental health coverage.
  
  
• Weaken protections for children. Children currently are entitled to early and periodic screening, diagnosis and treatment (defined as access to any Medicaid-covered service, whether or not in a state’s plan). S. 1932 would give children two benefits, one modeled on private insurance and a second with other Medicaid services. But many families may not know how to access the broader benefit, and states may require prior approval as a roadblock.
  
  
• Require low-income people to pay premiums and co-payments. Providers would be allowed to deny care to those who can’t afford co-payments and states could cut them off Medicaid entirely if they can’t pay premiums.
  
  
• Allow states to require higher cost-sharing for “non-preferred” medications. But mental health medications are not clinically interchangeable and can affect different individuals in different ways. This would happen at the same time that many mental health consumers are struggling with the fiasco of interrupted coverage in the transition to Medicare Part D. 
             
  
• Reduce access to targeted case management services, which link people to other critical services and allow ongoing monitoring of their situation and treatment.

And S. 1932 would not reduce the deficit.

Act Now

Join members of the Campaign for Mental Health Reform nationwide on January 31st —or before then if it’s more convenient for you —and ask Congress to go back to the drawing board on Medicaid in budget reconciliation.

For more information about S. 1932:

Summary of  harmful Medicaid provisions in S. 1932

Analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Analysis of Data Showing How Medicaid Cuts Will Harm Millions