It's time we face some 'dirty words'

There are some words that Americans sweep under the rug, out of public view. These words are avoided both by policy makers and average families across the United States.

No, they aren’t curse words, but rather medical terms such as depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

The U.S. has long struggled with the issue of mental illness, but in the wrong way. Eager to push mental illness out of sight and out of mind, we’ve created a stigma around mental illness and its treatment.

Currently, the National Alliance on Mental Illness reports one in four American adults experience mental illness, with one in 17 living with a serious mental disorder such as
schizophrenia.

American youths don’t appear to fare much better. One in five Americans ages 13 to 18 experience severe mental disorders. For those ages 8 to 15, the estimate is 13 percent.

But because of the stigma surrounding mental illness, not many people with mental illnesses seek medical assistance. The Psychiatric Services journal stated that 66 percent of mental patients reported they did not seek medical assistance because of the attitudes surrounding mental illness.

Another barrier is cost. Many insurance companies don’t fully cover mental illness treatments. In fact, 47 percent of mental illness patients in the same survey reported they were financially unable to pay for services. From 2005 to 2009, only 15.7 million Americans sought treatment for mental illnesses. To put that in perspective, 61.5 million American adults experience mental illness.

Now, mental illness doesn’t just go away if we ignore it.

It actually has real-world effects on the country. Twenty percent of suicides — the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. — are composed of veterans suffering from a mental disorder.

Economically, mental illnesses cost $193.2 billion in lost earnings annually.

Additionally, 70 percent of youth in the juvenile justice system suffer from a mental illness, while 20 percent of prisoners in state penitentiaries have a disorder. Twenty-six percent of homeless adults in shelters are also mentally ill.

Treatment of mental illness and mitigating its stigma are two of the nation’s biggest health problems, but its unclear how to solve them.

Logically, most people would say that the government should invest more in mental health services. The largest step we’ve seen from the federal government is the passage of the Affordable Care Act, commonly dubbed Obamacare, which requires insurance companies to cover the treatment of mental illnesses.

For those too poor to afford insurance, however, the states are given control to treat those within its borders. Indiana recently began bragging about a system that treats children who don’t qualify for MediCare, but whose insurance (or lack thereof) doesn’t cover these mental illnesses.

This program has treated 100 children since it rolled out and has been allocated $25 million of the budget for the Indiana Department of Health & Human Services.

Unfortunately, only 1.85 percent of the almost $1.5 billion dollar budget for Health & Human Services.This program doesn’t represent an effective effort to help solve the plight of mental illness.

Rather, it’s an effort to make the problem look like it’s being taken care of, when it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Indiana needs to start taking mental health more seriously. If we want to keep our citizens safe, keep homelessness rates down and improve our economic status, we need to start by caring for those who need it most.

­— ajguenth@umail.iu.edu
Follow columnist
Andrew Guenther on Twitter
@GuentherAndrew.