Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill To Strengthen America’s Mental Health System

As part of a wide-ranging effort to address gun violence in the wake of December’s mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a bipartisan group of senators has introduced the Excellence In Mental Health Act, legislation that aims to strengthen America’s mental health safety net by providing behavioral health care facilities more access to federal funding and consolidating disparate elements of the U.S. mental health safety net.

When introducing the legislation, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) explained, “[W]e must work together to spend federal dollars more wisely when treating people who are mentally ill. This bill will help address our fragmented mental health system and ensure that more patients have access to the care they need by offering current Community Mental Health Centers a chance to expand their services and obtain the Federally Qualified Community Behavioral Health Center designation.” Such a move would provide qualifying behavioral health centers parity with physical health centers by giving them access to prospective — rather than retrospective — Medicaid reimbursements. Modern Healthcare reports that the legislation would also require the federal health centers to offer more expansive services to mentally ill Americans and their families:

The new criteria established by the bill… would require such things as 24-hour crisis care, the increased integration of mental and substance abuse care with other kinds of medical care, as well as expanded support for families of mental health patients.

Mark Covall, president and CEO of the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems, said increased standardization and integration are both worthwhile goals (though the association doesn’t take an official stand on the bill). Whether it is adding mental health services to federally qualified health centers or adding medical care to mental health centers, integration is important because that is the direction the industry is moving toward, Covall said.

In its current iteration, the Excellence In Mental Health Act represents a solid step in the right direction when it comes to bridging the illogical gap between the ways that physical and behavioral health issues are treated in America. But while the increased funding provisions are good news, the bill still does not go quite as far as the Wellstone-Domenici Mental Health Parity And Addiction Equity Act, which would require most private insurers to treat mental health coverage the same way they treat any other coverage.

It is also encouraging that the bill includes mental health resources for veterans and substance abusers. Military suicides reached a record high in January, and substance abusers — as a group — are among the most likely to suffer from a co-occurring mental illness. Alongside Sen. Al Franken’s (R-MN) recently-introduced Mental Health In Schools Act — which encourages early intervention and community resources for mentally ill American children — the new legislation suggests that the Senate is serious about plugging the gaping holes in America’s mental health safety net.

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Obama to propose 1 percent pay hike for federal workers

President Obama will ask for a 1 percent pay raise for civilian federal workers in his 2014 budget, labor leaders briefed by the White House told CNN on Friday.

The Office of Management and Budget told federal labor unions that Obama will ask for a percentage increase in salaries in the next fiscal year.

“After all that federal workers have sacrificed the past three years, they have earned a raise,” said William R. Dougan, national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, told the network. “I repeat, they have earned a raise. We are pleased to see the president take a bold stance and advocate for this badly-needed pay adjustment."

That raise would come on top of the half-point pay hike scheduled to take effect in late March, which has been delayed as part of the fiscal cliff deal struck last month. Federal salaries have been frozen since 2011. The Pentagon also announced plans to raise salaries by 1 percent earlier this week.

While union leaders agreed that it was nice to see the president fight for an increase, some voiced concern the raise was not sufficient.

“While the president’s proposal for a 1 percent pay increase for federal workers in 2014 is better than a pay freeze, I don’t feel like jumping and shouting for joy,” Carl Goldman, executive director of the AFSCME Council 26 told Government Executive.

“There are a number of unanswered questions concerning the proposal: Will there also be locality pay increases that reflect the higher cost of living in many areas? Will there be a raise in federal employees’ contributions to the health insurance program, which could have the net effect of a pay cut? It is difficult to know exactly how to react until these and similar questions are answered," he said.

The president's budget was due this week, but the White House missed the deadline to present the proposal to Congress. Any pay hike would still need to be approved by Congress.

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Colorado Committee Kills Bill Giving Legal Protections To Teaching Climate Change Denial And Creationism In Schools

By Jessica Goad

Earlier this week, a key legislative committee in Colorado voted down a bill that would give teachers at the state’s schools and colleges legal cover to teach the questioning of climate change and other subjects that “cause controversy” in the classroom.  The bill directed teachers to:

… create an environment that encourages students to intelligently and respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to biological and chemical evolution, global warming, and human cloning.

H.B. 13-1089 was sponsored by Rep. Stephen Humphrey (R) who explained:

This bill is not a curriculum change that would force educators to teach intelligent design or creationism.  It simply provides legal protections to those teachers who would like to provide their students with a complete education on both the strengths and weaknesses of these hotly debated scientific subjects.

The Colorado House Education Committee, of which Democrats are the majority, voted down the bill on a party line vote.

Colorado is not the only state to see such bills, even if their radical anti-science message did not gain traction there.  Legislators in five other states have introduced bills allowing teachers to deny evolution and climate change.  Interestingly, they all bear resemblance to “model” legislation that has been promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative corporate front-group that puts together draft bills for use by state legislators.

In the past, ALEC has drafted model bills such as the “Environmental Literacy Improvement Act,” which requires teachers to “encourage an atmosphere of respect for different opinions and open-mindedness to new ideas.”  ALEC has also been behind bills that block putting a price on carbon, turn over public lands to states and private companies, and roll back state renewable electricity standards.  One of the co-sponsors of the bill in the Colorado Senate is a dues-paying member of ALEC.

The Heartland Institute, an extremist group that once compared people who believe in global warming to the Unabomber, has also been linked to these types of bills.  Heartland is still a member of the ALEC task force that originally wrote the Environmental Literacy Improvement Act, and is also designing climate-denial curriculum.

The fight over teaching climate change denial in schools has just begun.  As Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education put it:

This victory in Colorado was too close. People in Colorado and elsewhere need to understand that these bills would be nothing but trouble: scientifically misleading, pedagogically unnecessary, and likely to produce administrative, legal, and economic headaches.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Center for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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Republicans Blame Video Games, Not Guns, For Gun Violence

Republicans are more likely to place the blame for gun violence on video games, not guns, according to a recent poll from Public Policy Polling. Sixty seven percent of Republicans believe that such games are a “bigger safety threat” than firearms — only 14 percent think the reverse.

The only problem? There’s no data to support that position. There is evidence that limiting access to guns can help limit violence wrought by those machines. In particular, there’s evidence to show that the Assault Weapons Ban helped to limit gun violence on the Mexican-American border. And in states where gun ownership is high and gun laws are lax, violence rates are higher.

On the other hand, there’s absolutely no conclusive evidence showing that video games are the root cause of violence. There are countries with much lower rates of violence that have much higher consumption of video games.

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AHCA CEO: No Solutions From Government

 Highlight transcript below to create clipTranscript:  Print  |  Email Go  Click text to jump within videoThu 07 Feb 13 | 05:30 AM ET Gov. Mark Parkinson, CEO of The American Health Care Association, tells CNBC that thanks to ever-increasing political partisanship, solutions to America's economic problems won't come from Washington.

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California Democrats Propose Strictest Gun Regulations In The Nation

California Democrats present gun violence prevention plan.

Thursday afternoon, a group of California Senate Democrats rolled out a legislative package that would create what would likely be the tightest gun regulation system in the nation, ranging from sweeping prohibitions on semi-automatic rifles to restrictions on guns in the home. The proposal consists of ten points:

1. Ban all semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines. California’s assault weapons ban only restricts the possession of semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines if they have an additional, “military-style” feature like flash suppressors. The new laws would tighten this law by banning all such rifles regardless of external features.

2. Ban possession of high-capacity magazines. California law bans the transfer, not possession, of magazines that can hold over ten bullets. This allows people wanting to skirt the law to buy the constituent parts and make the magazines themselves. The new law would close that loophole.

3. Ban “bullet button” conversion kits. State law defines “detachable magazines” as, in part, magazines that can be released “without the use of a tool.” Bullet button kits allow magazines to be released quickly by pressing a bullet into them, thus creating an end-around the intent of the assault weapons ban. The new provisions would ban such kits.

4. Bans shotgun-rifle combinations. It would ban this class of class of weapon.

5. Universal registration of all guns. The law would create “ownership records consistently across-the-board, ensuring all firearms are recorded” so that the background check system can prevent criminals from getting guns.

6. Background checks on ammunition. This provision requires a “full and complete” background check on ammunition sales, “building on” laws existing in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

7. Regulating gun loans. The legislators propose setting up an as-yet undefined regulatory system for the loan, as opposed to sale, of guns.

8. Prevent prohibited individuals from living in homes with guns. California’s Armed Persons Prohibition (APP) database lists people who can’t legally own weapons (as a consequence of criminal or mental health records) under state law. This addition would prevent people on the list from living in a house that has a gun.

9. Cracking down on people who can’t own guns legally but do anyway. Currently, 19,700 people who are on the APP list own guns. Police estimate that these people own roughly 39,000 firearms. This new law would authorize additional funding to enforce the law in this area.

10. Required safety training for handgun owners. People with concealed carry permits are required under California (and many other) state laws to pass a mandatory safety and firearm instruction course. This provision would require all handgun owners, regardless of permit status, to undergo a similar process.

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Hey Fairfax County, High School Seniors Can Handle ‘Beloved,’ And Learn About Racism and Sexism

Laura Murphy, whose son is a senior in high school in Fairfax County, Virginia, doesn’t think he—or anyone else—should be reading Beloved in their English classes, and she’s on a quest to get it bumped from the curriculum. Per Raw Story:

“I’m not some crazy book burner,” Murphy, a mother of four, insisted to the Post. “I have great respect and admiration for our Fairfax County educators. The school system is second to none. But I disagree with the administration at a policy level.”

In spite of the awards and accolades won by Beloved and its author, who won a Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, Murphy feels that the book’s theme of the brutality of slavery and scenes depicting gang rape, infant murder and violence are too intense for high school seniors. She said her son had nightmares when he had to read the book for his senior English course.

“It’s not about the author or the awards,” said Murphy. “It’s about the content.” On Thursday, the Fairfax County School Board voted not to hear Murphy’s challenge to the book. She now plans to take her fight to the Virginia Board of Education.

The thing about sending your children to public school is that you’re consenting to give up a certain amount of control over what they’re exposed to, because one of the major points of public schools is to make sure students have a pre-established set of skills and cultural references in common. And that often means teaching children things that their parents don’t know, or giving them access to literature and history that their parents might not have at home, or frankly, might not want them to read or learn about. It also, on an emotional level, means letting your children come into contact with ideas and art that will expand their sense of the world.

An associated risk of that is that they might be upset by some of the things they learn about the world. Racism is frightening. So is sexual assault. But both of those things have happened in the United States, and for many people, continue to be major factors that affect their day-to-day life. And I think high school seniors, especially those who will be going off to colleges where they have much more sexual autonomy, and will be dealing with larger and more diverse peer groups, not only are old enough to understand the reality of those facts and to be confronted with the emotional impacts they have, but really ought to be confronted by them. I’m not a parent yet, but my understanding is that parenting is a balance between protecting children from things they genuinely don’t have the capacity to process—Wu-Tang may be for the children, but I’m not sure Toni Morrison is—and helping them process the difficult things they have the moral and emotional ability to confront, even if that involves hard work on your, and their parts.

If Murphy’s son is having nightmares about slavery and gang rape, that actually seems to suggest that he’s pretty attuned to the emotional horror of racial and sexual violence. Maybe, instead of trying to protect him from those feelings, she could find some way for him to channel them into productive anti-racist or anti-sexist work. That would be much better college prep (and resume-building) for him than trying to save him, and other seniors, from being upset. I doubt Murphy is going to have much luck with the Virginia Board of Education. And she’ll have much less with whatever institution of higher learning he heads off to.

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