Issue Position: Mental Health

Issue Position

People living with mental illness often struggle to get ongoing quality treatment, with too many suffering preventable, life-disrupting crisis, and many becoming incarcerated. Lorig will fight to build a comprehensive mental health system, with a focus on community treatment, including prevention, early intervention, recovery, 24/7 mental health crisis mobile units in every county in Maryland, assertive community treatment, funding for acute and crisis in-patient treatment and effective release planning with transition to out-patient care.

Maryland must ensure parity in health coverage, strengthening and monitoring laws that require public and private health insurance to cover mental health and substance abuse treatment equally as physical health. Maryland must ensure that reimbursement rates are sufficient to fund community mental health centers, eliminating waiting lists and providing comprehensive high quality care. Maryland must establish civil outpatient treatment program as a less restrictive treatment alternative for individuals cycling through crisis hospitalization and/or incarceration.

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