Let's get political. Gun Debate!

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JohnLane

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john vanlandingham
A glib statement "other means" is just blather.
Knives, swords, bricks, fists they are less sure of a kill, risky for the attacker and all you need for escape is some little distance...

You sure about that? The worst killing in a school in the USA was done by a nut who was pissed about not getting re-elected or some ish.... He used Dynamite.

Those bent on killing will find a way. Diesel and fertilizer was used effectively to make quite a mess.

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JohnLane

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john vanlandingham
A glib statement "other means" is just blather.
Knives, swords, bricks, fists they are less sure of a kill, risky for the attacker and all you need for escape is some little distance...

You sure about that? The worst killing in a school in the USA was done by a nut who was pissed about not getting re-elected or some ish.... He used Dynamite.

Those bent on killing will find a way. Diesel and fertilizer was used effectively to make quite a mess.

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john vanlandingham
Re mental health diagnosis and treatment: that costs money and there's no profit. Taxes are evil! They're taking my moniez, it's all mine! nobody ever did anything for ME! why should I pay for some other loser's mental health care...Mental health is not a right, it's a privilege! Government is wasteful...We should privatise mental health, that'd be the most effcient thing. The Miracle of the marketplace.
etc etc
blah blah,

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Dazed_Driver

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JohnLane

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john vanlandingham
A glib statement "other means" is just blather.
Knives, swords, bricks, fists they are less sure of a kill, risky for the attacker and all you need for escape is some little distance...

You sure about that? The worst killing in a school in the USA was done by a nut who was pissed about not getting re-elected or some ish.... He used Dynamite.

Those bent on killing will find a way. Diesel and fertilizer was used effectively to make quite a mess.

That. Like I said, there are other very easy ways to kill lots of people.

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JohnLane

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john vanlandingham
Re mental health diagnosis and treatment: that costs money and there's no profit. Taxes are evil! They're taking my moniez, it's all mine! nobody ever did anything for ME! why should I pay for some other loser's mental health care...Mental health is not a right, it's a privilege! Government is wasteful...We should privatise mental health, that'd be the most effcient thing. The Miracle of the marketplace.
etc etc
blah blah,

You recall why the crazies got turned loose.... The Courts did that....

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Introduction
The history of the mental health budget in California and in Los Angeles County is the story of
balancing acts and budget shortfalls in a system with continually changing moral and financial
burdens. As philosophies of care have evolved at the State level, LAC-DMH has struggled
to meet new mandates, at the same time as it has faced rising costs and demands for care.
Responding to reform efforts by the legislature and the voters, the County has been forced
to patch services together to meet the eligibility and use guidelines of categorical, reimbursement,
and special revenue sources. Despite repeated efforts at reform, the funding and
provision of these services remain inadequate in the face of the desperate need.

Deinstitutionalization and the Transfer of Responsibility

The early years of the mental health system in California were characterized by state-run
psychiatric hospitalization. People with severe mental illness were offered little hope for
recovery, and many were placed indefinitely in these institutions. The first such facility –
Stockton State Hospital – opened in 1853. By the end of 1957, a total of 14 state hospitals
housed a population of 36,319.
In the early 1950s, however, the introduction of chlorpromazine (Thorazine) and its sister
drugs opened up new possibilities for treating severe mental illness in the community. In
response to this trend, California legislators enacted the1957 Short-Doyle Act, which
stipulated major changes in the funding responsibility and provision of mental health care.
The legislation was based in the idea that, with most mental illness could be treated with
psychoactive drugs in the community and that increased availability of community services
would encourage people to voluntarily seek treatment earlier and achieve a fuller and more
rapid recovery. The bill provided 50% matching state funds to cities or counties for most
mental health programs. In 1963, the State increased its match for local Short-Doyle programs
to 75%, and broadened the types of programs that were eligible for state funding.
By 1967, about 87% of the state population had access to local Short-Doyle programs.
In 1968, the pivotal Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS) became the aggressive next step
in shifting to community-based care. The law required that a judicial hearing be held to
determine whether a person could be involuntarily hospitalized, greatly reducing the
frequency of such commitments. In addition, LPS required all counties in California with
populations over 100,000 to establish mental health programs, and the law increased the
state funding match for local programs to 90%. The Reagan and subsequent state
administrations promoted the trend to community-based care by closing nine state
hospitals; only five remain in operation today. Between 1957 and 1984, the California state
hospital population dropped 84%. Together, these developments placed the primary
clinical responsibility for mental health care on the counties, which were forced to rely for
the bulk of their funding on the State.
The envisioned success of this “deinstitutionalization” rested largely on the assumption that
as hospitals closed, the funds saved from their closure would “follow the patient” into the
community. But in 1972 and 1973, California governor Ronald Reagan vetoed two funding
provisions designed to protect these savings for mental health, beginning an ongoing pattern
of funding diversions and shortfalls. At the same time, many California counties had not
developed extensive mental health programs prior to 1957 and were struggling to cover
the steadily growing outpatient population. Although the philosophy that motivated
deinstitutionalization was sound in principle – the belief that people could be successfully
treated in less restrictive settings at a far lower cost – its implementation left counties with
a clinical burden that was grossly disproportionate to the funding they actually received.....

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Proposition 13
In 1978, the California state budget entered perilous waters when angry voters passed
Proposition 13, a ballot initiative that capped property taxes. Motivated by concerns about
wasteful state spending, the initiative increased the counties’ financial dependency on the
State at the same time that their responsibility for mental health care surged upward.
Because the measure limited property taxes at both state and county levels, the budgetary
cushion that had previously allowed LA County to implement programs neglected
by the state mental health budget – programs for which the County was forced to
spend beyond its required 10% match to State funds – evaporated. At the State level, the
drop in revenue led to major cuts in mental health allocations.

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From 1965 to 1969, $260 million was authorized for community mental health centers.[5] Compared to other government organizations and programs, this number is strikingly low. Unfortunately, the funding drops even further under Richard Nixon (Republigoon) from 1970–1973 with a total of $50.3 million authorized.[5] Even though the funding for community mental health centers was on a steady decline, deinstitutionalization continued into the 1960s and 1970s. The number of state and county mental hospital resident patients in 1950 was 512,501 and by 1989 had decreased to 101,402.{while the US population had grown by 100 million}
This continuing process of deinstitutionalization without adequate alternative resources led the mentally ill into homelessness, jails, and self-medication through the use of drugs or alcohol.[5] In 1975 Congress passed an Act requiring community mental health centers to provide aftercare services to all patients in the hopes of improving recovery rates. In 1980, just five years later, Congress passed the Mental Health Systems Act, which provided federal funding for ongoing support and development of community mental health programs.[5] This Act strengthened the connection between federal, state, and local governments with regards to funding for community mental health services. It was the final result of a long series of recommendations by Jimmy Carter's {Lane's favorite President who single handedly caused all the inflation, exchange rate variations, sneakily increased the price of oil in 1973 by 400%, then doubled it during his own term,and all the unemployment years before he took office; a veritable Proto- Communist Nazi Muslim according to Lane} Mental Health Commission.[4]

Despite this apparent progress, just a year after the Mental Health Systems Act was passed, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 was passed. The Omnibus Act was passed by the efforts of the Reagan administration as an effort to reduce domestic spending. The Act rescinded a large amount of the legislation just passed, and the legislation that was not rescinded was almost entirely revamped. It effectively ended federal funding of community treatment for the mentally ill, shifting the burden entirely to individual state governments.[7] Federal funding was now replaced by granting smaller amounts of money to the individual states.[8] In 1977, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) initiated its Community Support Program (C.S.P.). The C.S.P.'s goal was to shift the focus from psychiatric institutions and the services they offer to networks of support for individual clients