Defunding care for mentally ill can lead to tragedies

Editor,

In the wake of the Germanwings Flight 9525 tragedy, it is hard not to ask questions about how better and more effective mental health services might prevent future catastrophe on large and small scales.

As a society, we need to do better and put the physical and mental well-being of our families and neighbors first. In 2013, Medicaid payments were frozen to 15 New Mexico behavioral healthcare providers who were estimated to have provided 87 percent of core service agency spending.

Since then, several agencies within the Las Cruces area have folded and/or been replaced. As a result, many individuals who were receiving treatments before have been left with little to no services following this event. Medicaid payments are typically restricted to low-income adults and children. As such, those in poverty have been most affected by this change and are among those most vulnerable to various mental illnesses.

As of today, the details of the audit still have not been released to the public, and two agencies that chose to fight the Medicaid freeze have been freed of wrongdoing. On the other hand, after paying an Arizona firm $24 million to implement a fix to the Medicaid fraud problem, we have already seen two of the replacement agencies leave the state altogether in less than two years, leaving a complete vacuum of services.

We must take action to address the numerous holes in the behavioral health system within our state and put an end to our insufficient behavioral healthcare system.

Sincerely,

Dylan Pell

New Mexico State University

teaching assistant