Should community based psychiatric services be publicly funded?

Should community based psychiatric services be publicly funded?

08/07/26

Should mental health services be publicly funded as they have historically been with the old State Hospital System? In the 60s deinstitutionalization of services for people with psychiatric disorders occurred moving the required services to Community Mental Health Centers.

States promised that the money saved from closing their psychiatric hospitals would be reinvested in community based services and then reneged on their promise and used the saved money for other purposes. The costs of psychiatric services were shifted to health insurance.

Health insurance, though, said they would only reimburse for services that were “medically necessary.” Health insurance would not pay for what came to be called “wrap around services,: which many people with psychiatric disabilities need. Case management services were not “medically necessary” and so people with psychiatric problems were left to navigate an increasingly complex service system on their own and there was a rise in the criminalization of people’s behavior and homelessness.

A return to State Hospitals is not the answer, but state legislators keeping their original promise to fund community based services not covered by health insurance is.