An Invitation to a local politician to speak at RHCD.

Memorandum: 
Date:  February 5, 2000 
TO:  The Honorable John Doe 
RE:  Invitation to Speak in Your City on Health Care Reform – 4/1/2000 And Perspectives on Mental Health Treatment and Managed Care
FROM:
     Steve Smith, Ph.D. President, Your Organization
     Jane Johnson, Ph. D. , Licensed Psychologist, Advisory Board, Your Organization
     Stacy Smith, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist, Past-President and Advisory Board, Your Organization 

As members of the mental health community we have been pleased with the attention you have brought to the problems with corporate managed care.  It is especially satisfying to know that our Senator shares many of our values.

It was therefore with considerable regret and disappointment that we received your negative reply to the request that you join the groups and individuals that have signed on at a national level as Supporters of Rescue Health Care Day. While we are confident that you had good reason for declining that request, we don’t know the particulars of your concern for abolishing managed care altogether. It led us to realize that it would be valuable to know where our thinking diverges on this matter.

Since you may be unaware of exactly what we are dealing with, we want to share our perspective with you. From that perspective, we are painfully aware of the harm that managed care has done to mental health treatment. The statistics revealed by the Hay Group Report ** [54% decrease in mental expenditures compared to 11% for health care in general since the advent of corporate managed care] speaks volumes. Simply combining those figures with the Surgeon General’s recent report on Mental Illness, *** which their press release characterized as heralding an epidemic in untreated mental and emotional illness, succinctly summarizes the unfortunate status of things.

We have noted with regret the failure of an effective Patient’s Bill of Rights in the Senate, or Conference Committee. We have tried, unsuccessfully, to promote meaningful managed care reforms. Given our understanding of the amounts being spent to defeat such legislation, we see no reason to be hopeful that such legislation will be passed in the foreseeable future.

We feel an obligation to help call the attention of the nation to the plight of mental health patients. You will note on the Rescue Health Care Day material [complete materials available at their website - <www.rescuehealthcareday.com>] that most of the national organizations**** concerned with mental health are supporters of Rescue Health Care Day. Other than Rescue Health Care Day, we know of no nationally coordinated attempt to call attention to this grievous state of affairs. We know of no similarly effective way to express our concern. If you know of some way in which our efforts could be more effectively directed, we would be most grateful if you would share those ideas with us.

We have two purposes in participating in Rescue Health Care Day:

1. To voice our experience that corporate managed mental health care is not doing the job, and cannot be fixed to do the job, and

2. To begin a focused dialog on alternative health care delivery systems with proposals for various specific systems that focus on patients not profits.

In keeping with the second part of our purpose, we plan to provide the Your State portion of a forum for a national dialog to consider every possible alternative to managed care.  We would be honored if you would use this Forum to present to the people of Your State the ideas you feel are important in solving our ongoing health care dilemma, in moving America beyond managed care. 

Please consider this letter our invitation to you to speak on that occasion.  Although we understand and accept, albeit with regret, that you don’t feel comfortable signing on at a national level as a supporter of Rescue Health Care Day, we hope you will want to participate in the dialog, beginning on that day, concerning where we go from here.

To provide you with a little more detail, if our request for a permit is granted, proposals for the future of health care from various groups and individuals will be presented on the Capitol steps in Your City at noon on 4/1/2000. We are hopeful that the media will recognize this newsworthy event. A list of other Your State speakers for this event will be forwarded to you shortly.  We will not expect your response to our invitation until you have that information.

While the following information is available at their website, for your convenience, we note that as of this date, Your State groups currently supporting Rescue Health Care Day include:

Ø     Your State Psychological Association, (if it has signed on)

Ø     Your State Consumers Council

Ø     Your State Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers

Ø     National Association of Social Workers Your State Chapter (if it has signed on)

Ø     Clinical Social Workers of Your State (if it has signed on)

Ø     Your State Committee to Defend Health Care. (if it has one and signed on)

Ø     Others

We value your views and efforts, believe we share common concerns, and would like to work with you to enhance our mutual concerns. We hope for your affirmative response to our invitation to speak at Rescue Health Care Day, even though you are not able to sign on as a supporter. 

In any event, we welcome your suggestions regarding how we might more effectively direct our efforts at influencing legislation to protect mental health patients and treatment from the ravages of managed care. Similarly, we are always available to share with you, or your staff, more details on our experience.

We note, for your convenience, the material and web addresses below.

* Internet address for current material regarding Rescue Health Care Day*, including an updated listing of supporters is available at http://www.rescuehealthcareday.com.  At any time you may check updated lists of supporters at available at http://www.rescuehealthcareday.com/Supporters&Participants.htm
** Summary of the Hay Group Report. “The total value of employer provided health care benefits, in constant dollars,
decreased by 14.2 percent over the last eleven years. The value of general health care benefits decreased by 11.5 percent since 1988, while the value of behavioral health care benefits decreased by 54.7 percent. [Italics added] As a proportion of the total health care costs, behavioral health care benefits decreased from 6.1 percent in 1988 to 3.2 percent in 1998.” Please see <http://www.haygroup.com/Default2.htm> for the full report. 
*** Surgeon General s Report on Mental Health.  According to current epidemiological estimates, at least one in five people has a diagnosable mental disorder during the course of a year (i.e. 1-year prevalence.) ..... A range of effective, well-documented treatments exist for most mental disorders, yet nearly half of all Americans who have a severe mental illness fail to seek treatment, according to the first-ever Surgeon General’s report on mental health.
***Please see http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/ for the full report.
****American Psychological Association
      American Psychiatric Association
      American Psychoanalytic Association 
      Clinical Social Work Federation

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