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Joe Kennedy: Trumpcare Is a Historic Attack on Mental Health Care

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Democratic Representative Joe Kennedy III Discusses the Republican Health Care Bill

A woman recently walked into my Massachusetts office to talk about her daughter, who had been diagnosed with serious mental illness in 2007, when she was just 4 years old.

A decade later, the stories this mother shared with me are heartbreaking. The countless hospital visits. The fights with insurers and doctors and courts. The time her daughter was kept for 21 straight days in the emergency room as her family desperately searched up and down the East Coast for a single available treatment bed. The ache of watching the person you love most in the world struggle against a merciless disease.

This mother ended our conversation by looking me in the eye and saying, without a hint of bitterness or anger, “But we’ve been lucky. Compared to other people I know, we’ve been lucky.”

If this is luck in the American mental health system, all of us should be ashamed. With 1 in 5 of our neighbors suffering from mental illness, the time for tinkering around the margins of our broken system is over. American families and communities need deep and dramatic reform.

Instead, congressional Republicans are moving forward with efforts to make it harder and more costly for the average American to access mental health care. These efforts began last month, with a hastily drafted bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Although it thankfully failed to get the support it needed to secure a vote in Congress, its message to the mental health community was clear: be warned. The legislation, championed by President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan, was the single largest attack on mental health care in recent history.

By removing guaranteed behavioral health coverage for those covered under Medicaid expansion, millions of people would have lost access to treatment for substance use disorders — in the midst of an opioid epidemic. By capping Medicaid spending for states, Trumpcare would have imperiled the largest insurer of mental health services in our country. The bill did nothing to address abysmal reimbursement rates for mental health providers. Nothing to infuse investment into the full continuum of care. And nothing to force insurance companies to stop skirting parity laws that require they treat mental illness as they do physical health.

Enough Americans spoke out against that dangerous bill that we were able to stop it in its tracks. But almost immediately, Republicans were back behind closed doors trying to revive it. Their second bill could soon see a vote on the House floor.

Unbelievably, it’s an even starker blow to those suffering from mental illness than its predecessor. The latest version of Trumpcare doesn’t just threaten access to behavioral health coverage for those on Medicaid, it threatens access to behavioral health coverage for everyone. Under the guise of flexibility, this bill would allow states and insurance companies to opt out of covering mental health care — not to mention other designated essential health benefits like maternity and emergency care. Premiums and deductibles would soar as a result. Any semblance of mental health parity would be extinguished. And current protections for those with preexisting conditions — which is particularly important when it comes to mental illness — would cease to exist.

This is not the debate Congress should be having during a mental health care crisis. We should be considering steps to vastly expand the transformative mental health reforms made by the ACA, not shrink them. It’s time to go even further.

We need deep investments across the entire continuum of care to connect patients with treatment before they reach crisis points. We need broader support for community health centers, which provide essential entry points for lower and middle-income Americans who struggle to find in-roads to our mental health system. We need increased Medicaid reimbursement rates to encourage a new generation of workers to pursue careers in the mental health field, dramatically increasing access in every community that needs it. And we need relentless enforcement of mental health parity to make insurers live up to the laws of this country, which already demand basic equity in the coverage and treatment of mental illness.

All too often, mental illness is relegated to the sidelines of our health care debates. It’s somehow still deemed less critical, less acute, less wholly devastating than physical disease. One in five Americans and the families who love them would tell you otherwise. From the depths of opioid addiction to the searing pain of eating disorders and the long, often lonely, road through anxiety and depression, we have abandoned too many people in a system that cannot meet their basic needs.

The 40 million Americans suffering from mental illness deserve better than the paltry “luck” of that young mother in my office. They deserve better than a health care bill that degrades them. They deserve a country that is there for them, without question or condition, in their time of deepest need.

Joe Kennedy III has served as the US representative for Massachusetts’s 4th Congressional District since 2013.

This article originally appeared in STAT and is republished here with Congressman Kennedy’s permission.

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Image by Lorianne DiSabato via Flickr and a CC license

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‘Radical Left Marxists’: Trump Launches Attack Hours After Judge Imposes Gag Order

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October 3, 2023

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Just hours after New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron imposed a limited gag order and directed Donald Trump to remove his social media post targeting and attacking, by name, the judge’s law clerk, the ex-president Tuesday evening issued an attack targeting the legal system, and apparently, by extension, Attorney General Letitia James.

Judge Engoron’s Tuesday order barred Trump from “posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any of my staff,” as Politico reported. The judge’s gag order did not extend to any officer of the court, witnesses, or anyone else involved in Attorney General James’ $250 million civil fraud case against Trump.

“Consider this statement a gag order forbidding all parties from posting, emailing or speaking publicly about any of my staff,” Engoron said Tuesday afternoon. “Failure to abide by this order will result in serious sanctions.”

Judge Engoron had announced in court: “This morning one of the defendants posted to his social media account a disparaging, untrue and personally identifying post about a member of my staff.”

“Personal attacks on members of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I will not tolerate them in any circumstances,” Engoron added.

Politico described Trump’s social media post as “a message alleging [the law clerk] ‘is running this case against me.’ The message was pulled from an account on X with fewer than 200 followers. Trump then linked to an Instagram account for Greenfield’s campaign for a judgeship in Manhattan civil court.”

READ MORE: ‘Part of the Authoritarian Playbook’: Trump’s Courthouse Rant Slammed by Fascism Scholars

“’How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately!!’ Trump added. He also posted a photo of her alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and referred to her as ‘Schumer’s girlfriend.'”

And while the judge ordered the social media post taken down, there’s nothing that can be done about the email blast Trump sent to “millions” of his supporters that included the post, as The New York Times reported.

Tuesday evening, despite having already been given one gag order, Trump appeared to tear into the legal system and Attorney General Letitia James in a series of false claims.

After claiming James’ civil lawsuit against him was unconstitutional and election interference, Trump wrote the decision to apply that statute to him “was done by Radical Left Marxists design, and is not the America we know.”

“It is so unfair that I am being tried under Section 63(12), which is unconstitutionally being used to punish me because I am substantially leading Crooked Joe Biden in the polls,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It is a Consumer Protection Statute, and not meant, at all, for Election Interference purposes, which is what this is all about! Under this Section of the law, I am not even entitled to a JURY (there is no checking of a box alternative!).This was done by Radical Left Marxists design, and is not the America we know. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

As The New Yorker reported last week, the law Trump is referring to was “passed at the behest of one of” James’ “Republican predecessors, Jacob Javits.”

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‘Terrorist Attacks’: Murphy and Cornyn Slam House GOPers Over McCarthy Ouster

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October 3, 2023

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After U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and seven of fellow far-right House Republicans voted to oust their own Speaker of the House for supporting a bipartisan vote to keep the federal government of the United States from a shutdown, a powerful Senate Republican and Democrat are both strongly denouncing the work of the few GOP extremists who toppled Kevin McCarthy.

U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a hard-core Republican of Texas and a former member of the Senate Republican leadership team, blasted the eight House Republicans for their “terrorist attack,” and warned it will happen again.

“We saw a similar thing happen to Boehner, Ryan, and now McCarthy. I’m sure the next speaker is going to be subjected to the same terrorist attacks,” Senator Cornyn said, according to HuffPost’s Igor Bobic.

Responding to a Texas radio talk show host from his official social media account, Sen. Cornyn added, “A handful [of] House members just want to blow up the institution and themselves in the process. Sad.”

READ MORE: McCarthy Ousted as Speaker in Historic First as Republicans Vow Vengeance Against Gaetz: ‘Kiss My A–’

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) called the ouster “a deeply embarrassing moment for America. A consequence of a Republican Party that has become so radicalized that it can no longer function as an organized political party.”

“Nobody should be rooting for this circus,” added Sen. Murphy in video recorded as he watched the House voting to remove McCarthy as Speaker. He warned that the ouster of McCarthy will now take the House away from the critical work of keeping the government open after November 17, “instead of working on a budget.” And he warned that no new funds to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war have been authorized.

“These are life and death stakes,” Murphy said, lamenting this “makes us look so weak and foolish around the world.”

Watch Sen. Murphy’s remarks above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Part of the Authoritarian Playbook’: Trump’s Courthouse Rant Slammed by Fascism Scholars

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McCarthy Ousted as Speaker in Historic First as Republicans Vow Vengeance Against Gaetz: ‘Kiss My A–’

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6 hours ago

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October 3, 2023

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U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has been ousted as the elected Speaker of the House of Representatives after a weeks-long campaign by his fellow Republican, Congressman Matt Gaetz. The Republican Florida lawmaker vowed over the weekend to put a “motion to vacate” on the House floor, which he did Monday night. Tuesday afternoon McCarthy lost the support of the majority in a full House vote.

No Speaker of the House has ever been ousted by a motion to vacation, according to the Associated Press, until McCarthy.

“The Office of the Speaker of the House of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared vacant,” the presiding Republican lawmakers declared. The final vote was 216-210.

No Democrats voted to support McCarthy as Speaker.

Overall House Republicans are furious with Gaetz, with some vowing to expel him should the House Ethics Committee submit a negative report on their investigation into his alleged, possible sexual misconduct, unlawful drug use, and public corruption.

In addition to Gaetz, other House Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy include Andy Biggs, Ken Buck, Tim Burchett, Eli Crane, Bob Good, Nancy Mace, and Matt Rosendale.

READ MORE: Trump Has Now ‘Crossed the Line Into Criminal Threats’: Top Legal Scholar

“After talking to a few House Republican lawmakers and aides,” during the vote to oust McCarthy as Speaker, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman reported he “would not be surprised to see someone move to have Gaetz expelled from the House Republican Conference.”

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) in a profane rant slammed Gaetz, in a recorded video, saying, “You want to come at me and call me a RINO you can kiss my ass! You go around talking your big game and thumping your chest on Twitter. Come in my office and have a debate mother —!”

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-LA) help up his phone while delivering remarks against Gaetz, chastising him for fundraising off his efforts to oust McCarthy.

“Using official actions to raise money. It’s disgusting!” he told his colleagues.

What happens next? According to The New York Times on Tuesday, “If McCarthy is removed, the House would be paralyzed.”

“A vacancy in the speaker’s chair would essentially paralyze the House until a successor is chosen, according to multiple procedural experts. An interim speaker would be chosen from a list prepared by Mr. McCarthy and his staff at the beginning of the year, but staff intimately familiar with House rules say the role of that person would be to oversee a speaker election and little more.”

As for McCarthy, he has said if removed as Speaker he would not resign from Congress. On Tuesday he suggested he would definitely run again for Speaker.

READ MORE: ‘Fool or a Liar’: GOP Knives Out for ‘A–hole’ Matt Gaetz as Vote to Oust McCarthy Appears Likely to Succeed

Watch the videos above or at this link.

 

 

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