Agonia: Mental Health Advocates

REJOINDER TO INSULT:
When Given Less, DO MORE--
Starting with (The Privilege, for Time-Being) of The-Vote

In Kentucky, as under several other juridictions, mental health consumers have but a privilege to suffrage-- not a right. But as many of us CAN vote, let us vote now -- in the Fall 2008 election and always-- for what is of-our-wallets, of social-justice, and of-mental-health.

Due to the shenanigans of the ancien Regime-- I mean the politics of the late 1990s to the mid-decade now (and you know -- all of you-- whom I mean) we now as mental health consumers are forced to take the short-end, while vastness of high-ways, and of thus high-way-robberies has taken place from our of-people-by-people-for-people-supposedly governance. This is a perceptible trend. Service in all areas has stiffled, suffocated, strangled little:little:lots over a series of times that have brought great bequeathment to the Welfare of War, the Welfare of Wealth, the Welfare of Weird.

There has been hue-and-cry over the large increases in what MH consumers have to pay for services-- a reality often unspoken and of which the public is dim therefore-- as well as the cutbacks in what is obtainable. NOW I cannot get certain kinds of lab-test for my several medical conditions (psychiatric + those-medicalities-caused-by-the-psychiatric) that are the reality of my retirement-age life. I have discovered-- as The Boomers retiring now will certainly have discovered-- that the Social Contract for the shortfalls of school:jobs:opportunities we got in youth-- and the liability of old-men's-wars-- would not be met on the far end of time with the 'carrot' of a social safety net. No. Due to the action of a callous Congress (you know who was in charge in 2006 and prior, not my party) we face the demise of Medicare/Medicaid as we know it-- much much much to the woe of the American Medical Association and all equity-minded folk.

In mental health, those who plugged 'equity' for mental health did not realize that equity for mental health CERTAINLY in fiscal and authorization-for-fiscality terms does not meet with equity in government. The Medicare and Medicaid both tend to stiffle mental health. The services which others get, we consumers in the receiving-end get not from America. On the other hand, we are now beginning to be expected to pay more for less service. The co-pay increases pinned to consumers now are by no means the beginning of such co-pays, such increases-in-co-pay: we shall in short-order be expected to give payment-in-full-not-in-kind for these services in psychiatry (not long really 'mental health') which are getting sketchy and augur to become imaginary.

For this reason, I am supporting Congress-folk who support MH issues like our equity-under-government problem. My present (Democratic) Congressman does support this cause, a matter which I receive gratefully, gladly-- all the while knowing that against the John Birchers in Congress (House and Senate) and in Kentucky General Assembly (GA) this will have been a bitter and probably unsucess-meeting battle. Unless...

WE VOTE!!!!!! So it is not very surprising-- as long as I am so condescendingly permitted suffrage/the-vote-- to VOTE MY WALLET. That it IS the donkey-party Democrats who do this so consistently (and not for 'jobs-back-to-work-bum' I cannot get under any circumstances)-- I shall VOTE DEMOCRAT PLUG DEMOCRAT PROMOTE DEMOCRAT.

Should the elephant-party GOP see the light in a real way-- and support MH-- then and only then will this position be reconsidered, re-drawn possibly. But there is strong tradition of this GOP clique-conservative-of-justice-little to penny-pinch-when-pound-wise is indicated, and where mental justice has been concerned, we have seen much violence-- the closure of asylums, the criminalization of the mentally ill in spates, homelessness-smirking, and now the short-end-of-courtesy from the strangle-funding of MH. The reversal in GOP will have to be more than a "New Freedom" of a right-to-work for mental consumers without jobs at all or opportunity for jobs. This is raw. Democracy demands difference to this indifference-- and certainly it would appear that the party named Democrat-- and thus for our democracy-- will deliver.

This is the most-responsible thing I can do, taking this stance-political-- after striving my utmost to ascertain that I for one shall NOT be victim to this studied and callous indifference from the Ancien Regime of Bushes Northups and McConnells. I hope these lackies do see the shortfalls of their soldier-mercenary-hire to the War-Lobby GOP-- but even the more, well-fried by these previously-mentioned brutes-- will VOTE DEMOCRAT in Fall, 2008.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44
M.S.S.W.

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 1:41 PM