House Energy and Commerce Committee Member Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) introduced the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act on Friday, which was proposed after a yearlong study on mental health and violence.
The package of bipartisan legislative proposals arose from a series of committee hearings.
“As we mark the somber anniversary of the loss of innocent life at Sandy Hook Elementary School, we are reminded that our mental health care system is broken,” Lance said. “…This is one of the great health care challenges we face in our nation: making available the tools to match people with the right care.”
The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act would increase availability of inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care options and reform laws used to commit an individual into mental care. It would also modernize the legal framework to help families and doctors make better decisions on mental health treatment and hold federally qualified mental health centers to a higher standard.
“High quality mental health care is of great importance to the American people,” Lance said. “Recent data suggest that fewer than one-third of Americans with diagnosable mental illness actually get treatment. Experts estimate that more than half of those who suffer from severe mental disorders do not receive treatment in a given year…”
Lance added that approximately a quarter of troops who return from Afghanistan and Iraq would experience a mental health condition.
Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), a psychologist, is the lead co-sponsor of the bill.
Murphy noted that inpatient treatment options have dwindled with the number of psychiatric beds falling from 550,000 in 1955 to 40,000 today.