e-News 7/8/16

• Fixing Our Ailing Mental Health Treatment System
• Repairs to Obamacare: Improving Access to Care
• Recognizing Terror Threats to New Jersey
• Benghazi Report Released
• “We cannot allow terrorists to use our own bureaucracy against us”
• Salute: Holocaust “Witness” Ellie Weisel
• Salute: Patience Tyne of Caldwell – Library of Congress Fellow

Fixing Our Ailing Mental Health Treatment System

More than 10 million Americans have severe schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or suffer from major depression.  Yet millions are going without treatment and families struggle to find care for their loved ones.

As a longtime mental health advocate, I recognize that the federal government’s approach to mental health has been notoriously chaotic - a patchwork of antiquated programs and ineffective policies across numerous departments, agencies, and offices.  In fact, the General Accountability Office notes that there are 12 federal programs charged with addressing mental illness and “interagency coordination for programs supporting individuals with serious mental illness is lacking.”

Fundamentally, mental illness is a disease. We certainly do not treat people with cancer or diabetes or heart disease so callously.

Sadly, some people end up in the criminal justice system or out on the streets because services are not available. The illness may result in suicide, drug abuse, crime, homelessness and more. Our failure to care for those who are ill comes at a very high cost to our society, in economic terms and in wasted human potential and, occasionally, terrible violence.

This week, the House of Representatives took a major step to change the way our nation’s health care system deals with mental illness. Among its important provisions, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, (H.R. 2646) would:

Empower Parents and Caregivers

Breaks down barriers for families to work with doctors and mental health professionals and be meaningful partners in the front-line care delivery team.

Improving Transition from One Level of Care to Another

Requires psychiatric hospitals to establish clear and effective discharge planning to ensure a timely and smooth transition from the hospital to appropriate post-hospital care and services.

Fix Shortage of Crisis Mental Health Beds

Provides additional psychiatric hospital beds for those experiencing an acute

mental health crisis and in need of short term (less than 30 days) immediate inpatient care for patient stabilization.

Increase Program Coordination Across the Federal Government

Establishes Interagency Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee to organize, integrate, and coordinate the research, treatment, housing and services for individuals with substance use disorders and mental illness.

Read more about the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Acthere.

Of course, I am a co-sponsor of H.R. 1270 and was pleased to vote for its passage in the House.

Repairs to Obamacare: Improving Access to Care

The House this week also passed legislation designed to improve access to health care through enhancements to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and targeted relief from the flawed Obamacare law. 

H.R. 1270 incorporates the text of three bills to improve access to health care through health savings accounts and provide targeted relief from President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Specifically, the bill includes the policies contained in H.R. 1270, the Restoring Access to Medication Act, H.R. 4723, the Protecting Taxpayers by Recovering Improper Obamacare Subsidy Overpayments Act and H.R. 5445, the Health Care Security Act of 2016.

Title I of H.R 1270 repeals the prohibition on using tax-free funds from HSAs and health reimbursement arrangements to purchase over-the-counter medication without a prescription.

Title II of the bill allows both spouses to make “catch-up” contributions to the same HSA and increases the maximum contribution limit to a health savings account.

Title III of the bill amends the Internal Revenue Code by further modifying the existing limits on the amounts to be repaid by taxpayers whose advance payments exceed the Obamacare subsidy to which they are entitled.

To learn more on H.R. 1270, click here. 

Recognizing Terror Threats to New Jersey

This week I also joined members of our New Jersey Congressional delegation in calling for additional resources to address the security needs of New Jersey communities. In a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson, we asked DHS to make adjustments to the way Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant allocations are calculated in order to take cyber threats and maritime security into account.

As Vice-Chair of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, I believe that Port Newark, the Elizabeth-Port Authority Marine Terminal and Port Jersey should be included when calculating the UASI risk formula. These changes would more accurately reflect the real threats to our state’s critical infrastructure. 

Based on the current incomplete formula, the President’s latest budget funds the UASI program at $330 million, a $270 million cut representing a 45 percent decrease in funding in one year!

Through my advocacy, the Homeland Security Appropriations bill approved by the House last month includes full funding of UASI at $600 million.

The UASI Program provides funding to address the unique planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercise needs of high-threat, high-density urban areas, and assists them prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism. 

Benghazi Report Released

The House Select Committee on Benghazi recently released its report.  You can read it here.

“We cannot allow terrorists to use our own bureaucracy against us”

U.S. security assistance to partners and allies in the global war on terror continues to be blocked by U.S. bureaucratic obstacles.  In fact, pending sales of U.S. weapons systems to Gulf Council Cooperation (GCC) countries; specifically Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, have been delayed for months, even years! 

Joined by the Chair of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, Kay Granger (TX) and the Chair of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee Ander Crenshaw (FL), I wrote this week to Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and National Security Advisor Susan Rice on this important topic.

We wrote, “The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and radical Islamic terrorists continue to threaten both our national security and the security of our partners and allies. The United States cannot and should not fight ISIL and other terrorist organizations on our own…Inexplicably, at the same time we have asked our partners in the region to assume greater roles in this fight, their requests for U.S. equipment languish. In some cases, their requests wait for years. This is unacceptable and must be rectified immediately.”

These bureaucratic delays are having multiple “harmful repercussions.”  They are putting strain on important relationships with partners in the fight against Islamic extremist groups, driving certain countries to purchase weapons from China and Russia and risking U.S. military interoperability with our partners.  

These delays have gone on for too long and are having negative impacts on our security. We must do everything possible to defeat radical Islamic terrorists. Those who have joined us in the fight against Islamic terror deserve better. We cannot allow terrorists to use our own bureaucracy against us. 

To read Tony Capaccio’s story from Bloomberg News, click here. 

Salute:  to Auschwitz Survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Ellie Weisel who became an articulate and passionate witness for the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. His Nobel Prize citation appropriately declared that “Wiesel is a messenger to mankind.” Mr. Weisel died this week at age 87.

Salute: Congratulations to Patience Tyne of Caldwell, who is one of just 38 college students from across the nation selected to serve as a Library of Congress Junior Fellow for the summer.  I had the privilege of meeting with her in my Washington office yesterday.  Learn more here.