Mental Health and Senate

¶ … Status of H.R. 2646: Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2016 A recent health-related initiative, H.R. 2646, "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2016," was introduced on June 4, 2015 sponsored by Republican Tim Murphy, Representative for Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district and cosponsored by Texas Democrat Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Miller, 2015). The bill was initially referred to the House Education and the Workforce, the House Ways and Means, and was then unanimously approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and subsequently passed by the full U.S.

House of Representatives on July 6, 2016. This was not a new bill, though, but was rather a re-introduction of H.R. 3717 (113th) held over from the previous Congressional session.

The stated purpose of the proposed act is, "To make available needed psychiatric, psychological, and supportive services for individuals with mental illness and families in mental health crisis, and for other purposes." Although many of the more significant reforms previously included in the bill have been removed to gain bipartisan support, the key provisions of the existing bill will have a significant impact on mental health in the U.S.

For instance, one key provision is relaxing existing Medicaid reimbursement restrictions for tertiary care mental health providers by authorizing Medicaid payments for inpatient stays up to 14 days. Another key provision provides for additional federal grants for mental health educational programs. The next step in the legislative process is consideration by the U.S. Senate.

Based on their analysis of the salient factors that will likely affect the outcome of the debate by the Senate, the political analysts at Govtrack estimate that this bill has a slightly better than one-in-four (27%) chance of becoming law.

Some of the factors that were cited by Govtrack in this analysis included the following: • The sponsor is on a committee to which the bill has been referred, and the sponsor is a member of the majority party; • A cosponsor (Texas Democrat Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson) is the ranking member of a committee to which the bill has been referred; • A cosponsor is the vice chairman of a committee to which the bill has been referred; • A cosponsor is the chairman of a committee to which the bill has been referred; • There is at least one cosponsor from the majority party and one cosponsor outside of the majority party; • A cosponsor in the majority party has a high leadership score; and,.