= new reply since forum marked as read
get rid of the Republicans! 
much of the problem can be traced back to the politics of Reagan and successive republicans (who worshipped Reagan)... there is so much wrong and disingenuous in what LaPierre and his ilk spout...
http://www.miwatch.org/2011/02/_ronald_reagan_and_mental.html
"...Although not perfect, the Mental Health Systems Act (of 1980) responded to these problems. For the first time since the National Institute of Mental Health became part of NIH in 1949, mental health was front and center in federal policy.
Then came Ronald Reagan. Within a month, the Office of Management Budget announced it would curtail the budget of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), phase out training of clinicians, interrupt research, and eliminate services. Cutbacks to staff followed; chaos ensued. Experienced people left, others remained in government service but were forced into menial jobs. Trained professionals were reassigned to labs to dissect dead rats; science writers were reassigned to typing pools. The Mental Health Systems Act would be disappear. Instead, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1982) would merge money for mental health programs into block grants, and with fewer dollars going to the states. They had the discretion to use them however they saw fit, often to perpetuate programs already deemed problematic. The pretense for all this was the president's concept of a "new federalism."
"Many of our dreams were gone," wrote Rosalynn Carter in Helping Someone with Mental Illness. "It was a bitter loss."
This could have been enough, but it was not. Pres. Reagan attempted to restrict criteria for determining eligibility for SSI, thought to be a safety-net. Nearly 2.6 million people were receiving insurance because their disability prevented them from working. New evaluations for eligibility led to widespread terminations. Of those who were terminated, about half appealed, and in two-thirds of the cases, administrative law judges reversed the decision. The process took nearly a year, during which time they, and their families, were deprived of promised help..."
http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html
"But the policy shift (Reagan's) had hardly anything at all to do with the mentally ill or the practitioners who treated them. It was designed to lower taxes and shift responsibility away from the federal government. Ironically then , the need for reform perceived by those involved and concerned with the mentally ill (practitioners and families) was co-opted by the interests of capital.
Reagan's social policy is best seen as an abdication. Reagan's economic policy was to adjust government regulation so that it favored business once again, and social policy was merely an outgrowth of this larger issue...Reagan worked to lessen the tax load for the rich, and the social policies were meant to match this goal. Business needed a more fav orable corporate climate, and Reagan worked to that end. The coalitions that were necessary for election were either gratified (the elderly) or abandoned (the poor). As for the mentally ill, certain changes that their families and practitioners wanted wer e gained, and the administration pointed this out. Even though these changes came about primarily through state governments and the courts, the Administration would take credit. All in all, business interests were served. Families and doctors were appeased. Patients were forgotten."
The party that killed Mental Health Care is now whining about "Those crazy people"
I can't stand it. 
