Friday, March 04, 2005

$3.35 Million Available for National Training and Technical Assistance Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health SAMHSA press release - "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) today announced the availability of FY 2005 funds for a cooperative agreement to serve as a national resource and training center to promote the planning and development of child and family centered systems of care for children and adolescents with, or at risk for, a serious emotional disturbance and their families. It is expected that approximately $3.35 million will be available to fund one cooperative agreement for a national training and technical assistance center for child and adolescent mental health. Of this amount, approximately $250,000 is included to provide technical assistance for State capacity building to grantees initially funded in FY 2004 under the Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Substance Abuse State Infrastructure Grants program. The annual award amount will be approximately $3.35 million per year for up to five years."  
  

$18.8 Million Available for State Grants to Transform Mental Health  SAMHSA press release - "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) today announced the availability of FY 2005 funds for cooperative agreements with states to support infrastructure and service delivery improvements that will help build a solid foundation for delivering and sustaining effective mental health and related services. 'Transforming our nation’s mental health system requires us to expand how we look at public and personal health care,' SAMHSA administrator Charles Curie said. 'Everyone from public policymakers to consumers and family members must come to understand that mental health is a vital, integral part of overall health. These grants will help change the way in which the mental health system provides effective treatment and ultimately how consumers and families recover.'"  
  

Solutions Needed on Mental Health in Washington State Spokesman Review story at MentalHelpNet - "If hundreds of men and women began showing up in Eastern Washington jails, emergency rooms and clinics, bleeding profusely from open sores, the health crisis would be tackled immediately. The blood would be so visible, and so obviously dangerous to the patients and others, there would be no question that the hemorrhaging must be stopped for the benefit of the entire community. In the past two years, those in Eastern Washington who suffer chronic mental illness, and have no means to pay for treatment, have streamed into emergency rooms, clinics and corrections facilities. They end up there because inpatient and outpatient programs to treat the mentally ill have decreased due to budget crises at every government level. Soon, one more source of funding will dry up. .."  
  

News Coverage of State Medicaid DevelopmentsA summary at the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report - with many links to related news articles - of developments in the states related to Medicaid. States covered include Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee and West Virginia. See also their related summary of opinion pieces appearing in US newspapers.  
  

Analyst: Bush Plan Saves Less on Medicaid AP story in the Las Vegas Sun - "Congress' top budget analyst estimates that President Bush's plans to slow spending for Medicaid and other benefits would save less money than the White House estimates, The Associated Press has learned. According to preliminary estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Bush's proposals for trimming farm, veterans, student loans and other benefits would save $50.8 billion over the next five years. That's $11.1 billion, or 18 percent, less than the $62 billion in savings the White House estimated when Bush released his new budget last month. The re-estimate could complicate the Republican-run Congress' job of writing its own budget beginning next week. That is because it means budget writers will have to find even more savings than Bush proposed to achieve the same amount of deficit reduction he claims - a task many lawmakers will find painful..."  
  

FDA Seizes Glaxo's Paxil Reuters story at Yahoo - "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that officials had seized batches of GlaxoSmithKline Plc's diabetes drug Avandamet and the controlled-release antidepressant Paxil CR because of concerns over manufacturing quality. The FDA  said in a statement that the manufacturing practices for the two drugs failed to meet standards for safety, strength, quality and purity. However, the agency said it was not aware of any harm to consumers and did not believe there was a significant health hazard. Patients taking the two drugs were advised to continue taking their medication but talk to their doctor about possibly using alternative products until the manufacturing problems have been corrected. "  
  

Ecstasy use 'link' to depression  BBC story - "Heavy ecstasy use is linked to an increase in depressive symptoms in some people, a study suggests. A Cambridge University team studied 124 people and found those with a certain genetic make-up showed greater signs of depression after using the drug. The scientists, writing in the American Journal of Psychiatry, said it could show how vulnerable ecstasy users are to long-term psychiatric problems." See also the abstract of the study.  
  

Mental health report lists TennCare savings (Tennessee) Nashville City Paper story - "Advocates for the mentally ill released a report on savings in mental health funding in hopes of keeping their clients on the TennCare rolls. The report, issued by the Tennessee chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), is called Finding Common Solutions for Funding of Mental Health Services in Tennessee. Sita Diehl, executive director of NAMI Tennessee, said the report is a direct response to the state’s proposed TennCare reform and the prospect that about 30,000 people with severe mental illness would be cut from the state health program." See also a related announcement and the full report at the NAMI web site.  
  

A priority gets $40 million in new spending (New Jersey) Story in the Star-Ledger - "Although it got only a passing mention in his speech yesterday, mental health is the big winner in acting Gov. Richard Codey's proposed budget, which allocates $40 million in new spending among 19 programs. In keeping with Codey's theme of austerity, no other area in his proposed $27.4 billion budget received as much new money. A battery of ethics reforms placed a distant second with a price tag of $7.45 million, according to budget records. .."  
  

Bills would create parity for physical, mental health coverage (Texas) AP story at the Star-Telegram - "Health insurance policies regulated by the state would have to offer mental health treatment and medications equal to their regular medical coverage under proposals before the Texas Legislature. A House Republican and a Democrat filed similar bills on the issue this week. Parity in mental health coverage would benefit businesses as well as consumers because of improved employee productivity and reduced absenteeism resulting from mental health problems, said Rep. Joe Nixon, R-Houston, as he introduced his bill Thursday."  
  

Mental-health clinics to stay open (New York) Journal-News story - "Six weeks after Catholic Charities announced it could no longer run a pair of mental-health clinics in Peekskill and Yonkers, the services they offered are being provided by other agencies. The clinics were among four that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York ran for some 30 years, offering psychiatrists and licensed therapists to patients of various ages and incomes. The agency announced in January it could not continue subsidizing $1.5 million of the clinics' $4.4 million annual operating costs."  
  

Mental illness coverage proposed (South Carolina) Story at The State - "Insurers would have to cover treatment for mental illness just as they do for cancer or diabetes under a bill that gets a hearing in the General Assembly today. South Carolina is one of 16 states that do not require insurers to cover treatment for mental illness. The bill also would forbid insurers from charging higher rates to cover mental illness than other diseases and would direct them to establish a set of conditions that qualify for coverage."  
  

Mental-health parity approved (Washington) Seattle Times story - "Convinced that an illness of the mind is as important as one of the lungs or heart, the state Senate yesterday passed a landmark bill that demands equal insurance coverage for mental and physical illnesses. Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the bill into law as early as next week. The 40-9 bipartisan vote comes five weeks after the state House approved the measure and ends seven years of frustration for proponents who saw the idea rejected session after session. "