Date: 2008-02-06
Speaker: TIM MURPHY (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Pennsylvania

Madam Speaker. I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Were gathered here today to debate or support H.R. 4848. a bill which extends that which Congress has passed before. and that was an important bill for its time. Its an important bill to extend for. in doing so. we acknowledge the innate value of helping those suffering from mental illness. We acknowledge in Congress that for those who suffer these afflictions. they may be relieved of that suffering through receiving necessary treatment. In compassion. we as a body extend our hand in support of those who suffer the pains of mental illness. We acknowledge that their illnesses are real. and that the appropriate treatments give them hope to slough off the yoke of their illness and again become a fully productive member of our Nation. our workplace and our family. The significance of this act may be overshadowed by other events of the day. but it is essential that we not fail to appreciate the value of this moment. not only in terms of what this bill does but what it does not do and. moreover. why we need to enact this law at all. First to the reasons for this bill. As John Adams said. "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." He made that comment not because our Constitution is a vehicle to support any particular religion. rather. he noted the inherent inadequacies of any body of laws. and that they cannot replace the moral light that should guide us when no law has yet been writ to define that path. Indeed. we cannot legislate common sense. we cannot mandate morality. and we cannot litigate compassion- We can. however. establish laws to define the limits of what can be tolerated. And where the laws do not apply. we hope that the goodness and faith that guides our hearts is sufficient to drive us to do the right thing. Unfortunately. when it comes to dealing with mental illness. our society. our culture and our government has failed to do the right thing. We have spent billions. hundreds of billions. I dare say. over the years tohelp those with mental illness. but we have remained shortsighted at best. or blind at worst as to what we truly must do. It is my wish that people would be personally guided by their own sense of justice and compassion to do the right thing in the treatment of mental illness. Instead. we remain willfully and woefully ignorant to the causes. the diagnoses. and the treatment of mental illness. We have denied its very existence. perhaps wasting our hope in the hope it would go away. We have instead tried to wish away its effects. We have minimized the impact. trivialized the causes. and criticized the patients. We have used words to make mental illness the butt of cruel jokes. We have used words like "crazy" or "retarded" or "idiot." as if attaching a derogatory label would free us from the responsibility for helping or treating those with these illnesses. I ask you: Would we use such disparaging remarks to describe persons with cancer. with diabetes. with heart disease? Could demeaning words make any of those diseases disappear or less painful? Can derisive words motivate someone to seek help? No. instead they drive the person further into the shadows to deny their own illness. to avoid treatment and not even help themselves. In many ways. we have not advanced very far beyond the days of the Salem witch trials when those with mental illness were ignorantly tried as criminals. sentenced to death. or cruelly treated with torture. Think this is not true today? Well. think again. Our.prisons are filled with persons who suffer from mental illness. Our courts are packed with victims of child abuse or sex abuse. Our churches are filled with those who are praying to be relieved of the terrible strains befalling them. Families break up. Jobs are lost. Children fail in school and lives are lost from untreated mental illness. And yet we continue to deny it is there and place barriers between the patient and the cure. In my many years of practicing psychology. I have never. never met a patient who was cured by denial. But denial is the common treatment for so many when it comes to acknowledging or treating mental illness. Listen. you cannot whisper it away. for even in the silence. even in the darkness. mental illness cries out for help. One in five Americans will suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. One in 10 young people suffer from mental illness severe enough to cause some form of impairment. Untreated drug and alcohol addictions cost Americans $400 billion each year. A Rand study estimated that depression alone cost employers $51 billion per year in absenteeism and lost productivity. Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. More years of life are lost to suicide than any other single cause except heart disease and cancer. Thirty thousand Americans commit suicide annually. and half a million attempt it. Among college students. three die each day from suicide. The Federal Government estimates that about 121/2 million people have alcohol problems. It costs businesses $134 billion a year in lost productivity. Does treatment work to help people with mental illness? Yes. it does. Studies of depression in the workplace have shown thousands of dollars of savings per employee when they receive treatment. We note that when 80 percent of health care costs are used to treat chronic illness. that the risk for depression doubles among those who are chronically ill and not receiving treatment. The cost doubles as well. The combination of appropriate medication and treatments have been very effective in treating anxiety. depression. bipolar illness and behavior disorders. But when health plans do not pay for appropriate professional care. where does the treatment come from? Seventyfive percent of psychiatric medications are prescribed by noipsychiatrists. Now look at that in the context of other illnesses. Would we tolerate it if 75 percent of insurance plans said that most babies would be delivered by people with minimal training? How about requiring that brain surgery is done by those who only had a few weeks of training in medical school. Would we accept that? We would not. This bill extends what we have done before. It helps in a small but important way. But it does not move us to where we need to be. Perhaps the lesson here is that there are many things we need to do for ourselves. many things we need to do to reach out to others and help. But it does not cure the barriers. It does not identify which diagnoses need to be treated. We will need to do more. Eventually we as a Nation need to come to terms with what needs to be done. The cost savings of providing the right treatment are huge. The costs of continuing to provide the wrong care. or denying care. are massive. As Benjamin Franklin said. "By failing to prepare. you are preparing to fail." Madam Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.