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EDITORIAL: Increased state funding for mental health care a good start

Palm Beach Post (FL) - 6/12/2014

June 12--After a fourth mass shooting incident in the United States in a week, it seems almost trite to praise the Florida Legislature for making a modest improvement to state mental health services.

But it has, and so amid the soul-searching over senseless violence, it's worth pausing to draw attention to a rare spot of good news.

The new budget signed by Gov. Rick Scott includes an extra $3 million to pay for "step-down" community-based mental health care for people with severe mental illnesses. These are transitional beds for people who are well enough to leave state mental hospitals, but perhaps not well enough to simply be released. The budget also adds about $4 million for new mental health crisis units and beds in areas that are under-served in Hillsborough, Sumter, Sarasota, Miami-Dade and Hardee counties.

About $200,000 of the new mental health "step-down" money will make its way to West Palm Beach'sJerome Golden Center for Behavioral Health, a nonprofit that offers crisis unit, outpatient and inpatient mental health care. CEO Linda De Piano said the money will help support the opening of a 12-bed program for adults with both mental health and substance abuse problems, to divert people who might otherwise end up in jail or state hospitals.

Florida's expensive civil and forensic mental hospitals have been holding on to patients longer than necessary. About 200 mental patients are ready to move out, but can't because there's been so few transitional places for them, according to Mike Hansen, executive director of the Florida Council for Community Mental Health. State legislators had earmarked money for step-down beds last year, Hansen said, but Scott vetoed the funds.

What changed this year? For one thing, Hansen did. He's a former member of the Scott and Jeb Bush administrations. Under Scott, he made changes at the deficit-running Florida Agency for Persons with Disabilities that brought its spending in line with its budget and shrank its waiting list.

He became an advocate for community mental health after retiring from state work.

If Hansen has political capital to spend, he's found the right cause. The best way to improve mental health services would be to expand Medicaid to cover the 1 million poor Floridians who don't qualify for Affordable Care Act tax credits. But if that's not politically viable, there's this: In 2008, the Florida Legislature did something truly terrible to the state's rickety system of mental health care. It voted to put all state clients under the oversight of private managed care companies, while earmarking nothing to pay them. The effect has been an immediate 5 percent cut to the most critical of all state mental health services, crisis care. The badly executed privatization effort sliced $18 million from the mental health crisis care system in one fell swoop. Next year's challenge will be to restore that 5 percent to the mental health providers, and find some other funding source for the managed care companies, and if possible, expand Medicaid.

Mental health care hasn't been a priority in Florida for many, many years. If Florida political leaders are wedded to foolish and dangerous laws like "stand your ground," they must also do right by citizens with mental illness. We look forward to seeing more substantive improvements next session.

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(c)2014 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.)

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