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Washington state ranks 47th in providing access to psychiatric care, according to the Bellingham Herald. The WA state supreme court stuck down a practice known as 'psychiatric boarding,' where patients are warehoused in hospital emergency rooms.
I think all of us--liberal, conservative, or other--could agree that caring for the mentally ill is a basic function of government, and should be among the first money allocated, not the last.
In WA we have built 3 pro sports stadiums in the last 20 years to subsidize billionaire owners and millionaire players. And there is a move afoot to build yet another stadium to get an NBA team back, and taxpayers are still paying off the KingDome, which was imploded in 2000. We spend billions on state-funded art, including $4 million on art to bedizen the Brightwater sewage plant in Snohomish County. Sound Politics: Brightwater Art Update
What kind of society forks over millions to subsidize (at the time) the world's sixth richest man (Paul Allen), but can't find the scratch to care for care for the tiny fraction of society that suffers from mental illness, and try to give them a decent life?
Based on the numerous uneducated statements I've read by many prominent members of the press about Robin Williams' suicide, calling him "selfish" for example, there is a very low level of understanding in this country for the disease of mental illness, and depression specifically. People seem to think it is a choice by the depressed person to be sad, not a chemical imbalance in the body, such as the insulin/glucose imbalance or lack of functioning beta cells in diabetic patients. Clinical depression can be just as deadly as diabetes.
Until the public is educated, mental illness will remain a stigma for the person with the disease and mental health services a low priority in public funding and health care.
Washington state ranks 47th in providing access to psychiatric care, according to the Bellingham Herald. The WA state supreme court stuck down a practice known as 'psychiatric boarding,' where patients are warehoused in hospital emergency rooms.
I think all of us--liberal, conservative, or other--could agree that caring for the mentally ill is a basic function of government, and should be among the first money allocated, not the last.
In WA we have built 3 pro sports stadiums in the last 20 years to subsidize billionaire owners and millionaire players. And there is a move afoot to build yet another stadium to get an NBA team back, and taxpayers are still paying off the KingDome, which was imploded in 2000. We spend billions on state-funded art, including $4 million on art to bedizen the Brightwater sewage plant in Snohomish County. Sound Politics: Brightwater Art Update
What kind of society forks over millions to subsidize (at the time) the world's sixth richest man (Paul Allen), but can't find the scratch to care for care for the tiny fraction of society that suffers from mental illness, and try to give them a decent life?
Washington state ranks 47th in providing access to psychiatric care, according to the Bellingham Herald. The WA state supreme court stuck down a practice known as 'psychiatric boarding,' where patients are warehoused in hospital emergency rooms.
I think all of us--liberal, conservative, or other--could agree that caring for the mentally ill is a basic function of government, and should be among the first money allocated, not the last.
In WA we have built 3 pro sports stadiums in the last 20 years to subsidize billionaire owners and millionaire players. And there is a move afoot to build yet another stadium to get an NBA team back, and taxpayers are still paying off the KingDome, which was imploded in 2000. We spend billions on state-funded art, including $4 million on art to bedizen the Brightwater sewage plant in Snohomish County. Sound Politics: Brightwater Art Update
What kind of society forks over millions to subsidize (at the time) the world's sixth richest man (Paul Allen), but can't find the scratch to care for care for the tiny fraction of society that suffers from mental illness, and try to give them a decent life?
The kicker is, a lot of times these sports stadiums and teams don't even pay for themselves until much much later. It takes years to get a ROI from sports venues, especially if it's not a multi purpose stadium. But, they do it for the publicity. More people care about having a sports team in their town than anything else.
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