Bush's Budget Slashes Mental Health Spending - Action Alert

Here's the letter I just zipped off to Congressman Shuler, and here's where I got the facts:

I know Bush's budget is going to undergo a KennyRogersesque transformation when it hits Congress, but I wanted to point out to you the issues about Mental Health spending.

Bush's budget cuts the following:

- the State Incentive Grants for Transformation to support the development of comprehensive plans to address fragmentation in a state’s public mental health system (to be eliminated);
- school violence prevention (to be cut by $17.8 million);
- jail diversion (to be cut by $2.9 million);
- seniors mental health (to be eliminated);
- post traumatic stress ($ 17.5 million cut);
- consumer support technical assistance centers (to be eliminated); and
- suicide prevention ($15.1 million cut).

Then it gets worse. Bush moves to cut Medicaid spending by changing Case Management from a Clinical service to an Administrative Service, thus cutting the Case Management budget in half. Unfortunately for us, Case Managers are generally Master's Degreed clinicians who won't work at a Secretary's rate. Also, Case Mgmt. requires a great deal of skill if it's going to be something other than a money-waster. Cutting this budget will actually cost more as less professional people start doing the work of Clinical Social Workers, Psychologists, and Counselors.

AND

The budget requires that schools take on the expense of the IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] in regards to transportation and school implementation.

Please work with Congress to, at the very least, freeze these areas at last year's spending. We're going to have a Democratic President and a massive retooling of the entire system soon, but until then we need y'all to hold the line.

Please send a note to our North Carolina Representatives asking them to defend Mental Health spending at the federal level. With North Carolina already 50th in the nation in per capita mental health spending, we can't afford to lose another dollar.

You can just copy and paste my letter if you like! Click here to use the awesomely easy BlueNC Action Page.

Or you can utilize some other technology using these facts:

Washington D.C. Office
512 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone:(202) 225-6401
Fax: (202) 226-6422

The Cannon House Office Building
District Office
356 Biltmore Ave. Suite 400
Asheville, NC 28801
Phone:(828)252-1651
Fax: 828-252-8734