My Take: Shirkey, Victory want to take away local mental health control

In 2017, Gov. Rick Snyder inserted boilerplate language, known as Section 298, into his proposed executive budget bill attempting to privatize the state’s $2.4 billion community-based mental health system by turning over state funding to Medicaid HMOs.

His proposal would have dismantled the state’s community-based public mental health system, with local control, turning it over to for-profit HMOs under the facade of improving coordinated mental and physical health care.

Receiving significant blowback from interested and concerned parties from across the state, Gov. Snyder tasked the state Legislature with forming a committee to study the matter and make recommendations for enhancing the state’s mental health system. This was accomplished by a statewide committee consisting of individuals representing community mental health organizations, HMOs and, most importantly, users of our mental health system and their families.

Afterward, this process laid dormant until now. State Senate Leader Mike Shirkey, a Republican, has taken it upon himself to resurrect Gov. Snyder’s effort to privatize the state mental health system by pushing forward Senate Bills SB 597 and SB 598. This approach is nothing more than a health plan money grab. These proposed bills will not improve care for Michigan’s most vulnerable citizens, and it will give control to entities who have not proven they can do the job — this is bad public policy. These proposed bills also completely ignore the recommendations made by the aforementioned legislatively appointed committee.

Turning over the state’s public mental health system to private, for-profit, HMOs will not enhance integration of physical and mental health care. It will not improve efficiencies or reduce costs and will not improve the quality of services. It will not increase access to care, increase providers or address workforce shortages, address the lack of sufficient inpatient care nor improve or guarantee better outcomes. It will eliminate local control and decision making and turn over control to a for-profit insurance company. After all, when profit margins decline, can we honestly believe that the quantity and quality of services will not be adversely affected?

The list of entities opposing these two bills is too long to list here. To date, 75 percent of the state's counties Board of Commissioners have passed resolutions opposing Senate Bills 597 and 598. Ottawa County is included among these. Yet our local Sen. Roger Victory appears more concerned with bowing to Senate leadership than he is listening and adhering to the concerns of his constituents. Past correspondences to Sen. Victory have fallen on deaf ears with not so much has a minimal canned response from him. Those correspondences have addressed, in detail, the concerns and negative outcomes of these two pieces of proposed legislation.

A poll of Michigan voters, commissioned by the Community Mental Health Association of Michigan found that over two-thirds of voters polled preferred the public mental health system to be managed by public entities who specialize in mental health care vs. turning the system over to private, for-profit companies.

Having a daughter with a developmental and intellectual disabilities, I am well aware of the importance of our local community-based mental health system and its effectiveness. Under Sen. Shirkey’s plan, when our daughter has need of services or revisions to her plan of service, who does she and her family deal with? It will no longer be our local community behavioral health professionals, the people that know her best, her abilities and concerns, but instead some across-the-state desk jockey whose only concern is the corporate bottom line and their individual performance to protect that bottom line.

Is Michigan’s system absolutely perfect? No. Is there room for improvement? No doubt there is. However, Michigan is fortunate to have one of the best community based mental health systems in the country, ranking six out of 50, according to Mental Health America.

Our local state representatives need to listen and respond to the concerns of their constituents by insuring that Sen. Shirkey’s “legacy” bills SB597 and 598 are rejected.

— Robert Brown is a resident of Holland.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: Shirkey, Victory want to take away local mental health control