The Big Picture

Many mental disorders start occurring around the time you are in college because of the everyday stressors put on college students. Many college students experience depression and anxiety. When you develop one of these disorders there is no telling what can happen because it takes over your whole well-being and changes who you once were.

What is the issue?

The lack of mental health treatment among the U.S. is becoming one of the most controversial topics of our time.  Mental health disorders are still stigmatized by people who don’t believe that mental health disorders come with negative health effects that are as significant as any other disease.

What do the political parties have to say?

It is a widely-discussed topic throughout the political parties, touching on how important is it to some as compared to others. While searching through each party platform one can infer the importance of it depending on how much it is being talked about within each platform.

The Democratic Party platform stance on mental health treatment states a step-by-step plan of how they’re stressing mental health treatment. They are ensuring that people know how a physical disability is equally as impairing as a mental disability. The Democratic Party proposes to hold a suicide prevention campaign, as well as expand community-based treatment, and fully enforce the parity law.

The Republican Party Platform touch on how they want affordable health care for all people including people with disabilities, but nothing is said about eliminating the stigma of mental health diseases so that they can to be more effectively addressed.

The Libertarian Party Platform on mental health treatment does not state anything directly about mental health treatment; overall, they want a free-market health care system.

The Socialist Party Platform argues for full funding for every person with a disability. They want to deplore media stereotypes that focus on a person’s disability rather than on their strengths and abilities, and the physical and social barriers that prevent the full participation by people with disabilities in vital spheres of life.

What our candidates have to say?

As anyone can see from the presidential debates, and from reading news media about Donald Trump, Trump never seems to be able to answer the question he’s given. There was an incident where Trump and Clinton were asked to speak on mental health treatment, and Trump had no comment. Hillary went into full detail of her ideas, posted in the September 28, 2016 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Clinton’s plan included improving but not repealing the Affordable Care Act, ensuring greater healthcare affordability for all Americans, achieving improved health and healthcare, and supporting innovations in diagnosing, treating and curing disease.

What’s at stake?

People are going to jail because they are mentally ill, and Americans lack understanding about mental disorders. For example, a person with schizophrenia preaching in the street is probably having a psychotic break. A police officer could believe that such a person is just inebriated, cuffs them, and throws them in jail.  Is that right? Do we not take the time to just learn the right precautions to take to deal with each situation the correct way instead just assuming everyone is consciously breaking the law? We complain about spending and costs, but if we spent money on mental health treatment, there would be less people in jail and more people getting the treatment they need.  Yes, it will cost us in the beginning to get these things up and running, but the only way to make things better is to educate EVERYONE and fix the damage already been done.