U.S. House to vote on mental health bill

Leaders in the U.S. House announced plans this week to vote on a long-delayed mental health reform bill in July (Source: “House to vote on long-delayed mental health bill in July,” The Hill, June 22, 2016). 

The announcement from Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) office is another major step forward for the legislation, which had been delayed for years but finally was voted out of committee this month. 

The bill would create a new assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services to oversee mental health and substance abuse programs. The official is intended to be a doctor. The bill also includes measures such as grants for innovative programs that are intended to make initiatives more effective and grants for areas such as preventing suicide and early intervention for children with mental illnesses.

The measure includes scaled-back changes to Medicaid to allow it to pay for more care and changes to health privacy laws to allow information about mentally ill people to be shared with caregivers more easily.