Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, today's vote on this wonderful bill is the result of longstanding efforts in the Energy and Commerce Committee to come to a bipartisan compromise on mental health legislation. I particularly want to thank my compadre, my chairman, Mr. Murphy, for his hard work on this. I have spent many, many hours talking to him about this bill over the last few years, and I am happy to have it come together.

This bill really incorporates a number of our positive changes that included key provisions from the Comprehensive Behavioral Health Reform and Recovery Act, which I am an original cosponsor, and other bills.

But as Mr. McDermott and others on this side of the aisle have said, we still have a lot more work to do. This bill is really just the first step towards true reform. And if we want to make a difference, Congress really does need to provide the resources needed.

We have heard people talking about overfilled jails. We have heard people talking about parents who can't find beds for their tremendously mentally ill children. We have heard about the lack of truly educated professionals.

These things can only be achieved with resources and money. And so I truly see this bill as the first step towards a very robust mental health system in this country.

The last thing I want to say is, action on mental health legislation does not excuse inaction on gun violence prevention legislation. We must do something as well as passing comprehensive mental health legislation to respond to the gun violence epidemic.

Americans, my constituents, want us to take these steps. They have made this abundantly clear in the last few weeks, and I am urging that we have a vote separately on those issues.

But for today, let's all vote ``yes'' on this piece of legislation, and then let's move forward for the important steps we need to take.

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