I think going from Roe to this is a stretch. Obama's obviously going snarky on McCain as a followup to Gramm's stupid comment, and good for him.

I can well believe Obama has problems on this issue, but this post doesn't show them. Digging into how he would cover mental illness with his fake "universal" plan might be a more fruitful place to look.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

this was just a play on McCain's adviser. It was good politics on Obama's part and it would be fine with me if he keeps it up.

obama's health plan is full of smoke and mirrors about mental health coverage. when i did a comparison of the plans, hillary was the one committed to mental health parity IN HER PLAN - obama talks about it in speeches, but "forgot" to put the actual commitment in his plan. woops.

it's what happens when you hang around with evangelicals too much - they diminish the role of mental disorders and substitute faith for treatment. god help us when they get the government-subsidized, faith-based "cures" for teh gay going. hey, maybe donnie mcclurkin can start an inpatient treatment program! straight in 28 days!

Obama made a crack about McCain's lame response to Aemrica's economic crisis. That is unrelated to Obama's lame health plan

... i know a bit about single payer, but not much. i'm a mental health professional. if you look in the myDD diary i linked to, you'll see the obamazoids come in with the "obama DOES TOO support mental health parity!" canard. look at my response there... here is his plan. do a word search for "parity". go on. it's not there. if he were so damn committed to it, you'd think he'd put it in his goddam plan.

lots of smoke and mirrors, but no commitment in the health plan, which has a specific mental health section where SOME mention of parity should be. hillary's plan has it. if obama will cover mental disorders that count as "disabilities" (developmental disorders), but not acute-onset things like bipolar and schizophrenia, he can easily provide coverage, because most of the severely and persistently mentally ill (SPMIs, we call them) won't need coverage in his plan. they don't have a "disability".

everybody voted for the Wellstone bill, but that's supporting parity the word, not parity the reality. the Wellstone bill prevents companies from excluding some mental disorders from coverage, or providing lower coverage for mental disorders, but it also leaves companies the option of not covering mental disorders at all. woops.

see, the problem is, unless your plan is universal, it won't address the problem. the millions of uninsured have parity - zero coverage for physical illness, zero for mental illness. exactly even. woops again.

i guess i've had too many decades of watching insurance companies - and governmental entities - weasel out of covering the mentally ill to be as optimistic as you are. a plan won't do me much good if there are people who don't qualify for it. i work in public mental health. nobody wants my clients. they are the ones you pass in the street every day.

is one of those issues that affects society much more than is generally recognized and having universal healthcare that treated mental illness could benefit many more people than just those who get the treatment.

It could be a significant step in helping redefine the "War on Drugs" away from treating it as primarily a law enforcement problem towards treating it like a health problem. Even the U.S. Department of Justice says that a lot of drug addicts are mentally ill. People with mental illness who don't get treatment tend to self-medicate. And some drugs can rewire the brain and cause long-term mental problems. Having a healthcare system in place to address mental illness could help both these groups of people. I don't know much about healthcare policy, but I tend to think it's better for people with mental illness to seek treatment from doctors than street gangs. Crazy talk, I know.

And it's not just the War on Drugs, in the absence of any kind of sane mental healthcare policy, our society has relied increasingly on the police and prison system to deal with those people who are mentally ill. According to Human Rights Watch:

On any given day, it is estimated that about 70,000 inmates in U.S. prisons are psychotic. Anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 male and female prison inmates suffer from mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression. Prisons hold three times more people with mental illness than do psychiatric hospitals, and U.S. prisoners have rates of mental illness that are up to four times greater than rates for the general population.

In addition to being insanely expensive (both in terms of dollars and social cost), law enforcement and prison officials are ill-equipped to deal with mental health problems. The system, which is already strained, isn't designed to deal with people who are sick. Los Angeles County, which operates perhaps the largest jail system in the country is a case in point. The Sheriff's Office has stuggled, often unsuccessfully, to deal with the large number of inmates who are mentally ill. Not surprisingly for a strained system not designed to deal with a large-scale health problem, tragedy can be the result.

Unfortunately, prisons are where a lot of folks end up getting their healthcare, mental and physical. Screenings for mental illness are done under less than desirable conditions and without any real health history.

We could go a long way towards alleviating the pressure on our criminal justice system by treating mental illness more effectively. With less pressure on the justice system it might work better, but I also think it would be easier to reform. It's very difficult to reform institutions that are strained and in crisis.

I no sooner finish my comment here and go over to Talk Left to find this very sad story.

I don't know whether the police acted appropriately or not. For me, the broader question is how this got to be a police matter. By the time the mentally sick guy is hopped up on cocaine and has a gun, society's response is going to be kind of limited to first getting the gun out of his hand. So the real question is whether the gun would've been there in the first place if we had better mental healthcare in this country. I know that some folks would go off their meds anyway and some mental illness doesn't respond to treatment, but I have to think incidents like this would be reduced with better healthcare.

I also believe nobody would be happier to see fewer incidents like this than law enforcement. Nobody enjoys these kinds of situations, too many opportunities for people - including the police - to be hurt or killed.

Obama was attacking McCain. That is all. I am all for calling Obama on his bad behavior, but this was not an exmaple of it.

into a broader discussion of UHC and mental illness and that was what I was addressing.

I agree with what you say about Obama's remarks regarding McCain. I don't think it had anything to do with real mental illness, either. The language he used to discuss mental health regarding abortion concerned me not just because he appeared to limit the health exception beyond the current law in Doe, but also because the way he talked about mental illness was a bit awkward. But I don't tie that to his recent slap at McCain as the initial post does. Two different issues there, IMO.

..i have worked in both the state prison system and in the state mental health system, and you're right. the main problem is that it's up to the states - there's very little federal control over prisons, and slightly more over state mental health systems (medicaid pursestrings). cops just want to get people who don't belong on the street off the street - if the CSU won't take them, the jail will. the less community treatment available, the more likely the person's going to jail.

jails and prisons are full of schizophrenics with bad attorneys, and, unlike the street, unless you're self-injurious, you can be as crazy as you want to be in prison. the resources and motivation to provide treatment just aren't there.

these people get released when their sentences eventually run out, with even fewer self-care skills than when they went in. they'll be back.

that he has made unpaid, unofficial advisers (UUAs) fair game. He has in the past said the comments by his UUSa were not pertinent bcz they were unpaid and unofficial.

So, now there's partiy in that area at least....

Watching Obama talk about this was interesting. It was actually funny--and Obama was clearly enjoying his joke and was very pleased with having said it. It was kinda cute.

Will solve all the problems...

Mental or otherwise. Put your faith, er, hope in Obama's awesomeness.

Why did Obama drag up the whole “all in your head” phrase anyway? It wasn’t in the Gramm quote he was mocking.

Gramm said "mental recession," no?

do you really believe that you can hold a "seminar" on a "new order" in the weblog world one day,

and then, criticize a very reasonable argument by one of your newer posters, truth partisan, the next?

do you not see that the two are connected? the new won't be born without some leeway from the power elite,

e.g., the leeway you denied willyjsimmons earlier,

when willyj dared criticized your mentor/pal atrios/duncan black.

to my reading, truth partisan makes a thoughtful and interesting argument,

immediately, you PIPE up with

"I think going from Roe to this is a stretch. Obama’s obviously going snarky on McCain as a followup to Gramm’s stupid comment, and good for him."

did you ever raise children, lambert?

do you know what giving people their head and letting them try things out is all about, lambert?

why don't you "shut the ......" and let truth partisan and the other commenters work this matter out in their manner, not yours.

maybe the "new order" you devoutly wish will arise and thrive without your guiding critique.

i have observed that you have a really UNCANNY manner of intervening in a blossoming discussion at just the wrong time, and almost always with newer posters.

with "old pal" posters, however, you display no standards whatsoever.

why the difference?

you advise truth partisan: "Digging into how he would cover mental illness with his fake “universal” plan might be a more fruitful place to look."

do you really expect your posters to do what you yourself almost never do? it has been apparent to me since i arrived at corrientre that you "dig into" things with the same commitment that atrios does,

which is to say, sheep dip deep!!

wise up and set a standard by your own behavior

or quit prattling about the new weblog world.

There are several things here:

1. The Obama quote: he was going after Gramm for playing Dr Phil (just typing that name makes me nauseous), that is hectoring people into kicking themselves in the butt and behave in ways he considers more appropriate (there are many reasons to never forgive Oprah *cough* the Secret *cough*, but inflicting Dr Phil upon the rest of us is at the top of that list).

2. True, if Obama starts attacking advisers, then the same standard applies to him and he can't whine about it (pun intended) afterwards (ok, bad pun intended).

3. Nice thread discussion on UHC, but not quite related to the quote itself.

4.Does Obama have a problem with thinking about mental illness... I think he has more of a problem with mental illness as related to WOMEN. He didn't make his "mental illness shouldn't count" comment regarding, say, Iraq vets.

5. Orion ATL... I won't pretend to be speaking for Lambert here, but yes, Lambert does play "arbitrator" around here because, yes, he has standards as to what he wants to see written here, as proprietor.

And yes, it seems to me that there will always be a difference of treatment between us newbies and senior fellows. That gets me annoyed on a regular basis for a variety of reasons, but that's the reality.

The only question is therefore, can we (newbies) live with that? I have to confess that it's my only point of ambivalence with Corrente.

However, I think you're being harsh in your characterization: yes, Lambert pushes for grounded arguments (linky goodness) and good critique and he points out when he sees good or weak arguments.

Why not refute his points and intervention in the discussion rather than go all ad hominem?

Although I do appreciate the support. I appreciate some of what you say on behalf of some of us too. Thank you. Please keep your thoughts coming.

Everyone else who disagrees should keep saying so too.

Lambert and I do okay. I find that generally Lambert is an excellent moderator.

Thanks campskunk, bd blue, and lambert for your info and thoughts on mental distress and illness.

Sorry for the delay in my reply. I have no idea how everyone can keep up with all the posts. Also, I really have no idea what Lambert means by his yawn reply.

Gob, thanks. Can I use this as a opportunity to ask for people to submit garden brags on their violets?

And to everyone, can I put a plug in for civility? It's easier for people to listen to our points if we are less pointed about them, although I enjoy many of your pointed comments. But maybe if we're doing back and forth here we could cool it a little with each other? I'll try more too. Remember Roger Williams: according to philosopher Martha Nussbaum, he got amazing stuff--no slavery in Rhode Island in the 1600's--by having good ideas, continuing discourse by answering others' ideas at length, and being civil.

But here's what I want to know:
WHY didn't Barack defend us bitter, gun-toting, religious, low-information voters?

I mean, WHY didn't he just say: Americans are not a nation of whiners?

It's the obvious defense, no, if Obama's going to interpret the remarks a certain way?