It's time to rethink the American approach to mentalhealth care during the pandemic.
Even before the COVID-19 crisis, America’s infrastructure for mental-health and addiction services was fragmented, overburdened, and underfunded. The coronavirus has put far more stress on that broken system. So far, Congress has failed to shore it up. That oversight will prove harmful to patients and their families and costly to insurers and taxpayers. Mental-health disorders were already at the top of the list of the most costly conditions in American health care even before COVID-19.
First, lawmakers should provide explicit financial support for mental-health and addiction clinicians to provide meaningful, timely, and convenient care. Any enhanced funding to Medicaid programs or hospitals should explicitly include an allocation for mental-health resources, including prioritization for programs that integrate mental-health resources in emergency rooms and other hospital wards.
Yet better mental-health services have not been a priority during the current pandemic. The CARES Act, the $2 trillion relief bill that flew through Congress, included a paltry $425 million for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. That investment is welcome, but it also underscores the dearth of official interest in this vital area.
The challenge is daunting—and not just for those who already face mental-health and substance-abuse issues and those at risk because of the changes in their life caused by the pandemic. The people crucial to fighting the coronavirus are vulnerable as well. Most telling in this latest round of survey data is the impact that COVID-19 is having on essential workers, including health-care personnel.
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