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Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2016

Floor Speech

Date: July 6, 2016
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care

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Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015.

Mental health has become a crisis in our country. There is a nationwide shortage of nearly 100,000 psychiatric beds. Three of the largest mental health hospitals are, in fact, criminal incarceration facilities. Only one child psychologist is available for every 2,000 children with a mental disorder.

Our Nation's mental health system is broken. Yet through the hard work of my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy), this bill fixes the deficit that currently exists in our mental health system through refocusing programs, reforming grants, and removing Federal barriers for care. It provides for additional psychiatric hospital beds. It advances telepsychiatry to allow for better coordination. It also incentivizes States to provide community-based alternatives to institutionalization.

This bill takes numerous steps to addressing the deficiencies that our mental health community faces.

I commend Representative Tim Murphy for his work on this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

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