This argument has been echoed by other Republicans, including Representative Tony Gonzales (Texas), Governor Asa Hutchinson (Arkansas) and, in a speech at the National Rifle Association convention, former president donald trump.
Never mind, apparently, that mental health advocates have suggested this is a scapegoat. Many people struggle with mental health issues, in the United States and elsewhere; most do not resort to violence, much less kill fourth graders. The easy access to firearms in this country allows a would-be mass shooter to carry out his violent ambitions, whether that person has been diagnosed with a mental health problem or not.
But let’s say these politicians genuinely believe that identifying and treating mental health problems, rather than, say, restricting access to efficient killing machines, is the key to curbing mass shootings. If that’s the case, why haven’t they put their money where their mouths are?
Texas, for example, ranks latest out of 50 states in overall access to mental health care, according to the nonprofit Mental Health America. The ranking is based on available data on measures such as the proportion of adults and children with mental health problems who have not been able to receive treatment.
Among the reasons why: Texas is one of the dozen states that have not yet expanded Medicaid, the public health insurance program that covers poor and low-income Americans, and is the single highest payer for mental health services.
texas officials rejection expanding Medicaid does not appear to be rooted in public welfare or fiscal responsibility concerns. The federal government has offered reticent states billions of dollars in incentives to expand Medicaid, most recently through last year’s American Rescue Plan. These incentives, in net terms, make state revenues go out ahead, even after taking into account Texas’s new spending obligations if it would make more residents eligible for public insurance. Expanding Medicaid would also reduce costs for hospitals that currently provide a large amount of unpaid care to uninsured patients.
Instead, Texas chooses to be the state with the highest proportion of residents who are Uninsured.
It gets worse. In April, Abbott transferred $211 million from the state Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees mental health programs, as NBC News has reported. indicated. The money was transferred to support Operation Lone Starthe governor’s controversial deployment of the National Guard and police resources to the border.
Texans have already heard of Abbott’s alleged deep concern for mental health services, at least in the wake of the gun-toting massacres.
After previous mass shootings, including one at a time houston area high school in 2018 and one aimed at Hispanics at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 — Abbott blamed “mental health” as the central cause. To his credit, after the high school shooting, he at least signed a series of bills aimed at (modestly) improving state mental health initiatives, like providing more mental health training for educators.
But such measures were insufficient to improve the state’s dire record on mental health services, such as a recent Houston Chronicle investigative series documented.
Those measures also clearly have not stopped mass shootings. nor have the many other bills abbot has signed in recent years by loosening gun restrictions, such as a measure 2019 give more teachers access to guns in classrooms.
Texas political leaders aren’t the only ones paying little attention to mental health issues, except when it’s useful to deflect from other political vulnerabilities.
United States Overall Ranking worse than most other rich countries on a variety of mental health-related metrics, including suicide rates and people’s ability to get or pay for professional help when experiencing emotional distress. Meanwhile, Republicans, including Trump, have work a Back public health programs and subsidies that enable the poor access to care that low- and middle-income Americans currently have.
For too many years, Republican politicians have gone from saying they will prevent gun violence by investing in health care (rather than gun restrictions) to later working to reduce access to care. Voters rarely seem to register the disconnect. But the more massacres there are, and the more frequent they occur, the more difficult it becomes to maintain these charades.
