Why Help Mentally Ill People?
Richard Scheffler and Neal Adams listed six “primary arguments” in favor of Proposition 63, a California ballot initiative that taxes people with an annual income of $1 million or more to support mental health services.
Those arguments were described in the article “Millionaires and Mental Health: Proposition 63 in California” in the May 3 Health Affairs:
Mental health services are underfunded. Absent new funds, the California budget crisis will threaten existing funding and will not allow for necessary increases. | |||||
Increasing funding for mental health services will improve the situation of people who are homeless. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill states that 50,000 mentally ill people in California are homeless as a result of deinstitutionalization between 1957 and 1988. | |||||
Better access to improved community-based services has been shown to be effective in diverting people with mental illness away from the criminal justice system. | |||||
Increased funding provided by Proposition 63 will reduce total spending in the health care system, because people with mental illness who lack appropriate community-based services use costly emergency and inpatient services. | |||||
Millionaires can afford to pay the tax that results from Proposition 63. | |||||
Passage is the “right thing to do.” | |||||
