Tea at Trianon: Managing Mental Illness

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, February 14, 2020

Managing Mental Illness

From The Washington Post:

That is why the president declared at the first White House Summit on Mental Health, “My administration is strongly committed to helping Americans suffering from mental illness.” And the administration has already taken action. Last year’s funding bill provided $3.9 billion for mental health programs, a $328 million increase. We invested in evidence-based programs including early detection, assisted-outpatient treatment and supported our law enforcement professionals. Finally, the administration solicited and approved the first-of-their-kind demonstrations for states to improve access to the full continuum of care these individuals desperately need.

But more remains to be done: President Trump is proposing to modify the outdated Institutions for Mental Disease payment exclusion, the long-standing Medicaid policy that prohibits federal reimbursement for many Medicaid-eligible patients who receive care in certain inpatient facilities dedicated to mental disease. These important changes will provide more than $5 billion in new federal funding to states that ensure a full continuum of care is in place to assist in getting people with serious mental illness the care they need and, in many cases, off the streets and out of prisons. (Read more.)