Talking Points on the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act Problems With the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646) Privacy • The bill would reduce privacy protections for people with mental illnesses. The bill would allow health care providers to disclose confidential mental health records to anyone who falls into the bill’s definition of a “caregiver,” which is anyone who helps the person do one daily living task or pay their bills.
Coercive Treatment and Institutionalization • The bill would require states to pass laws that would allow courts to order forced outpatient treatment under certain circumstances. If states do not pass these laws, they would lose out on some federal mental health funds. • Forced outpatient treatment doesn’t work and violates the right of people to choose whether they get treated and what type of treatment they get. People in forced outpatient treatment need to get approval from a judge if they want to change their doctor or medication.
Eliminating Programs that Work • The bill would eliminate the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The community-based support programs funded through SAMHSA are very effective and important to people with mental health disabilities and their families.
Taking Away Legal Protections • The bill would take away many legal protections available to people with mental illnesses through the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) program. It would limit Protection and Advocacy organizations to investigating abuse and neglect. • PAIMI progams currently help make sure people get community-based services that they need. They also help defend people from discrimination. If they were limited to investigating abuse or neglect, people with mental illness would have nowhere to go for advocacy on these issues. • The bill would make it illegal for Protection and Advocacy organizations to give any advice to their clients that contradicts the client’s caregivers , even if those caregivers were abusive or acting against the client’s best interest.
Talking Points on the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (or H.R. 2646) is therefore a bill which would de-fund important services that help people with psychiatric and developmental disabilities. Tim Murphy, a Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania, introduced the bill in 2015. This bill is really dangerous. We are asking Representatives: • NOT to support or sponsor this bill, and • to co-sponsor better bills instead, called H.R. 4435 and S. 2680
Note: H.R. 2646 is a House of Representatives bill, and Congressman Murphy is a member of the House of Representatives. Do not confuse him with Chris Murphy, who is a senator. Focus on Representatives rather than Senators when speaking about our opposition to H.R. 2646. There is no exact Senate version of the bill. However, there is a Senate equivalent to the bill that we like. We can ask Senators to co-sponsor that bill.
Ask Your Senators to Support S. 2680 and Your Representatives to Support H.R. 4435 There are two alternative mental health bills that most organizations support.
S. 2680 (In the Senate) would: • Strengthen SAMHSA rather than eliminate it • Leave privacy protections and the protection and advocacy programs untouched. • Give money to programs that help people with psychiatric disabilities, including programs that help the homeless, create new mental health recovery programs, and programs that help prisoners with psychiatric disabilities.
H.R. 4435 (On the House side) would: • give money to States that have comprehensive programs that help people with psychiatric disabilities stay in community-based settings. • Give more money to effective, community-based mental health programs for both adults and children. Ask your Senators and Representatives to rally behind these bills as a better way of reforming the nation’s mental health system.
Other Groups Opposing HR 2646 Prominent advocacy organizations representing many very different interest groups have condemned H.R. 2646. Some of the groups who have written letters opposing H.R. 2646 are: • Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Task Force, • the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, • the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), • The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women (NTF) and • The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Each group has said in its letter that H.R. 2646 harms or is very likely to harm the people they represent. If possible, mention this to the Representative or to staff.