Senate and House committees have put forward two sets of fundings bills for mental health and addiction services. The results won't be decided until the lame-duck Congress meets after the November elections.
Last month, Congress escaped from gridlock to approve two spending bills that kept the government open while maintaining high levels of mental health funding. The Congressional action shows that mental health continues to command uniquely strong bipartisan support.
The compromise bill avoided the disaster of a government default , but the bill may make it more difficult to provide robust federal funding for mental health and substance services for the next two fiscal years.
The annual dance in Congress over passing a bill to avert a government shutdown carries extra importance for mental health advocates this year. The proposed package would complete a historic year of funding and policy-making in mental health.
At the end of a Congressional session that has focused more on mental health issues – and passed more funding for behavioral health – than any Congress in history, could further substantive legislation still emerge? The answer, as always these days, is maybe.
It’s been years since any major gun control or mental health reforms have come out of Congress. But on Thursday, a gun-violence prevention package with $15 million in mental health funding was passed by the Senate on a 65-33 vote. The bill will be taken up by the House of Representative on Friday.
The summer before midterm elections, little usually gets done in Congress. But this year, action is possible on mental health. Will anything actually get done?
Almost halfway into the current fiscal year, President Joe Biden finally signed an appropriations bill that will fully fund the government for the rest of the year – and that contains substantial increases in mental health funding.
Mental health care and substance use may finally have achieved parity with primary care and specialty medicine – at least in terms of congressional interest. In February alone, there have been five mental and behavioral health hearings between the four committees with jurisdiction over health. Those who have been tracking mental health for a while will tell you this is an unprecedented focus on an often-overlooked subject.
While there still is a long road ahead before Build Back Better could become law, it seems now that they may be closer than before.
Much attention is being paid to the so-called human infrastructure bill that Democrats are struggling to come to agreement on, but the yearly federal appropriation bills for FY 2022 has bigger implications for mental health funding.
There is potentially a lot of mental health money in the outlines of the human infrastructure package, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), as well as several mental health initiatives.
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Some therapists who had trouble connecting with youth turned to another source of connection: Minecraft therapy, which follows the approach of play therapy. In this webinar, we’ll talk with two leading experts in the promising genre.
How Minecraft Therapy Is Transforming Child and Teen Mental Health Care
