LEGISLATIVE ACTION

NAMI Ohio and affiliates across the state, are embarking upon their most aggressive campaign ever to get the attention of state legislators in promoting a budget platform that will result in better usage of present funding and other budget priorities as follows:

#1 PROBLEM: Ohio’s Medicaid program does not pay for mental health disorders in the same way it pays for physical health disorders.

SOLUTION: Move responsibilities for Medicaid to the State so that local communities can concentrate resources on those in greatest need.

#2 PROBLEM: Money did not follow patients released from state hospitals into their communities as promised by the Mental Health Act of 1988.

SOLUTION: Do not cut the current level of funding in state’s budget for the purchase of community mental health services.

#3 PROBLEM: People with severe mental illnesses need the stability of housing, food and supports in order to get well. Children need to stay with their families and get services in their own communities rather than being placed in expensive institutional care.

SOLUTION: Direct local Boards to provide critical services for adults and children before they can spend state or local dollars on less critical services.

#4 PROBLEM: People with severe mental illnesses must have access to medications; this can be a life or death situation.

SOLUTION: Prohibit limits being placed on access to mental health medications for the severely mentally ill.

#5 PROBLEM: psychiatric hospitalization in Ohio is not adequate – there aren’t enough beds, patients are released before stabilized, and patients are not linked adequately to community services and supports upon release.

SOLUTION: Offer incentives to hospitals that accept Medicaid patients to provide more psych beds. Prohibit state hospitals from releasing patients until they are stabilized. Require patients to be linked to community services and supports in the community to include appropriate housing before being released.