Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) delivered the following remarks during Floor consideration of H.R. 2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act:
I rise in support of H.R. 2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act.
Today’s mental health system can hardly be described as a system at all. While some states are undertaking promising improvements, the system is fragmented, overwhelmed and under resourced. Far too many people with mental illnesses can’t get the treatment they need to live long, healthy and productive lives. So I’m pleased that this bill takes an important step toward improving mental health care in this country.
The bill under consideration today is a significant improvement over the original version introduced a year ago. It’s no secret that many of us had substantial concerns with some of the provisions in the original text of the bill - and I’m sure that my fellow members of the Energy and Commerce Committee remember the extensive debate we had on this bill during our Subcommittee markup last November.
Since that time we’ve found common ground. We removed many provisions that would have done more harm than good and replaced them with policies that strengthen the bill.
I’m proud that H.R. 2646 now includes several policies championed by Democrats. The bill requires that states provide the full range of Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) services to children in the Medicaid program who receive inpatient psychiatric care at so-called “Institutions of Mental Disease" (IMDs). It creates a new Assertive Community Treatment grant program and a peer professional workforce grant program. The legislation also creates new grant programs to address adult suicide, expands access to community crisis response services, and creates and disseminates model HIPAA training programs.
A great deal of work went into crafting this agreement, and I want to thank my Republican colleagues for continuing to meet with us throughout this process so that we could bring a bipartisan product to the floor. That said, the bill before us today is not transformative reform, nor is it a panacea to the many problems now facing our mental health system.
I encourage my colleagues to see this legislation as a necessary step rather than a solution, and I want to be very clear on this point - if we are truly serious about fixing our broken mental health system, we have to expand access and make sustained investments. That means we must work to encourage all states to expand Medicaid and provide more federal resources to support the growth of community-based prevention, treatment, and recovery services. This legislation is not comprehensive, and it by no means contains enough funding to make the mental health system whole. I hope that in the near future we can work together again on additional legislation to increase treatment options and further strengthen mental health parity enforcement.
I once again want to thank my colleagues who stood with me throughout this long process, fiercely voicing their concerns and advocating for major improvements to the bill. I also want to thank Chairman Upton for his leadership, and the bill’s sponsors Representatives Tim Murphy and Eddie Bernice Johnson for championing this issue for so many years.
I urge my colleagues to support this important bipartisan bill and look forward to the Senate’s action on this issue.
