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FL spends less than most states on mental health

9/1/2010 © PolitiFact
Bud Chiles, who dropped out of the governor's race this week, claimed that Florida is 49th in per capita spending on mental health. PolitiFact's research team says he's correct.

Crist flipping, flopping, fumbling and losing

9/2/2010 © Orlando Sentinel
Mike Thomas writes that the people most inclined to support Charlie Crist, moderate independents, are those most likely to stay home Election Day. It is the end, and ever the optimist, Crist doesn't realize it.

McCollum right to be skeptical of Scott

9/2/2010 © Miami Herald
Joy-Ann Reid writes that Bill McCollum now stands alone among his Tallahassee clique in refusing to take to one knee for Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Scott. Is McCollum a sore loser? You bet. But he's right about Scott.

Children of Katrina still need help

9/2/2010 © Miami Herald
Dr. Irwin Redlener and Mark K. Shriver write that as much as Katrina was a disaster of unprecedented scale, it also revealed a nation woefully unprepared to respond to a large-scale disaster, especially in our failure to meet the needs of children.

Remembering Rick Scott's play for Tampa General

9/2/2010 © St. Petersburg Times
Business columnist Robert Trigaux recalls the mid-1990s, when the huge public hospital went through a messy investigation after almost becoming part of the Columbia/HCA empire.

FMA slams AMA for caring about patients

9/1/2010 © Tampa Tribune
Policy wonks Brian Klepper and David Kibbe note that the reason the Florida Medical Association is mad at the national group is because AMA no longer solely focuses on doctors' incomes and protectionism.

Hospital suitor may have stepped over the line in attracting doctors

8/31/2010 © Florida Today
Matt Reed writes that the company lined up to buy Wuesthoff Health Systems says it plans to start recruiting local doctors to join its organization. But did Health Management Associates go too far in those efforts elsewhere?

Party holds its nose and embraces Scott

8/30/2010 Miami Herald
Carl Hiaasen says Rick Scott's resume reeks from his health-care ripoff, but party leaders will embrace him anyway after zipping on their Hazmat suits.

Scott doesn't need media or party bigwigs -- just ads

8/29/2010 Orlando Sentinel
Mike Thomas says the media and party bigwigs all think Rick Scott is a crook and that those who vote for him are bigots. But as long as he can pay for 30-second ads, he can win.

The good, bad and ugly from the primaries

8/27/2010 © Orlando Sentinel
Scott Maxwell writes that although we were inundated with campaign mud, a handful of candidates stayed positive — and it worked.

Why Scott won, and why he could win again

8/26/2010 © St. Petersburg Times
Howard Troxler writes that if Rick Scott can start from scratch and knock out Bill McCollum, what will he do against Alex Sink in the governor's race?

No such tax in health-care law

8/26/2010 PolitiFact
An e-mail chain is spreading a rumor that the health health care law will impose a tax on real-estate sales. After doing research, the PolitiFact team says: Not so.

Reality springs a leak in BP spill coverage

8/26/2010 © Orlando Sentinel
Mike Thomas writes that the script for the BP oil spill is falling apart. There will be no environmental calamity. The gulf is healing itself faster than anyone imagined. Bad news for those pushing the story line of environmental devastation

Will business lobby switch sides? and 4 other things to watch

8/25/2010 © Times/Herald
Political reporters Adam C. Smith and Beth Reinhard pose 5 questions that Rick Scott's victory raise.

Florida is letting down its children

8/22/2010 © St. Petersburg Times
David Lawrence Jr., president and co-chair of the Children's Movement of Florida, writes that Florida ranks poorly in measure after measure in how we invest in our youngest, most vulnerable citizens.

New federal health website a start, but we need more

8/21/2010 © South Florida Sun Sentinel
Janet Trautwein, CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters, writes that the government's new health Web portal is incomplete without including access to licensed insurance agents and brokers.

Tampa? You need to calm down

8/19/2010 © St. Petersburg Times
Robert Trigaux writes that a new study says Tampa Bay is the No. 4 metro area nationwide when it comes to being most stressful. So try and chill out, Tampa Bay, before we rank even higher on the list.

When science is inconvenient, just ignore it

8/18/2010 © Miami Herald
Fred Grimm writes of the great American paradox: We live bountifully off the fruits of scientific research while attacking scientific findings that offend religious or political ideologies. Or the bottom line.

Rick Scott can't recognize his own negative ads

8/19/2010 © Florida Times Union
Ron Littlepage writes that attack ads are the name of the game in campaigns, especially for rich candidates trying to buy an office. Taking part and then denying you are? Sounds like a typical politician to me.

Why is homeopathy still legal?

By Jann Bellamy
Special to Health News Florida
Tallahassean Jann Bellamy of the Campaign for Science-Based Healthcare wonders why lots of countries have found homeopathy worthless, yet allow it to continue.

Hysteria did the real damage in the Gulf

8/18/2010 © The Guardian
Simon Jenkins writes that from the BP leak to terror or ash clouds, politics has spurned its most precious responsibility: to react proportionately to danger.

Don't discount the power of hope

8/17/2010 The Doctor Weighs In
Retired oncologist Stanley Winokur of Singer Island, FL, talks about how to answer the question that most patients or their family members ask: "How long do I have to live?"

It's up to us to protect ourselves

8/14/2010 © Miami Herald
As columnist Casey Woods chews over some new concern about what her son eats, wears or plays with, she can tell her husband believes she is taking the research too far.

Divorced? Heavens, no! Zealots give religion a bad name

8/13/2010 © Orlando Sentinel
A far-right Christian group is targeting attorney general candidate Pam Bondi because -- hold the presses -- she's been divorced. Twice!

Oil in seafood? Claims don't seem to hold water

8/12/2010 © Orlando Sentinel
Columnist Mike Thomas does some digging and discovers there is little evidence to back up the scary first claims.

With 'true believer' Rick Scott, it's buyer beware

8/11/2010 © WPLG
Political reporter Michael Putney says Rick Scott really believes government is always wrong and the private sector is always right. He would shake things up -- and tear a lot of things apart.

McCollum's sad pandering on gay parents

8/11/2010 © Orlando Sentinel
Columnist Mike Thomas says McCollum misled him in an interview on allowing gay foster parent Martin Gill to adopt. McCollum is so desperate to win the primary that he's pandering to everyone.

Voters prefer Gov. Fraud to Gov. Howdy Doody

8/10/2010 © St. Petersburg Times
Columnist Howard Troxler says voters know all about the Rick Scott fraud at Columbia/HCA, but they still like him better than that other guy.

Health-law supporters play to tough crowd

8/10/2010 © Florida Times Union
Health reporter Jeremy Cox says state officials are not very likely to listen to patient advocates who want Florida to start planning how to implement the federal health law.

Losing weight's hard, regardless of what Oprah says

8/10/2010 © Palm Beach Post
Emily Minor is fed up -- so to speak -- with overly simplistic formulas for losing weight or keeping it off. She's even mad at Oprah.

There's a good chance health law will mean fatter paychecks

8/6/2010 © Kaiser Health News
Phil Galewitz writes that Social Security trustees predict employers' savings from health insurance will be transferred to fatter paychecks, which will help shore up the retirement system.

I flunked swimming lessons, but I'm going to keep trying

8/5/2010 © Pensacola News Journal
Reginald T. Dogan writes that for too long, too many kids have drowned. These were preventable tragedies. It's up to all of us to prevent the next ones. Learn today, and live to swim another day.

I want access to my medical records, darn it!

8/4/2010 © Palm Beach Post
Stacey Singer writes that a recent bout with a nasty respiratory bug that hit her family left her with a consumer’s view of the medical records debate. Why shouldn’t the public be able to see their own medical record upon request?

1 in 4 of us obese; the good news: It's not 1 in 3

8/3/2010 © Palm Beach Post
Stacey Singer writes that one in 4 Floridians now qualifies as obese, based on a national phone survey by the CDC. But even more disconcerting: Florida's self-reported obesity rate of 25.2 percent is lower than the national average.

Greene, Meek trade false barbs in Senate primary field

8/3/2010 © FactCheck.org
Factcheck.org checks out the Florida Democratic primary battle between Rep. Kendrick Meek and billionaire investor Jeff Greene. Both men carry heavy political baggage; now each is attacking the other with misleading claims.

Put hysteria aside, learn from oil spill

8/3/2010 © Orlando Sentinel
Mike Thomas writes that the oil spill hysteria we witnessed these past few months wasn't reporting. It was a script written to comply with a preordained story line. Evil oil company. Incompetent feds. Environmental Armageddon.

Fixing Medicare and improving lives

8/3/2010 © Sarasota Herald Tribune
Jim Brown writes that a huge portion of Medicare costs was spent on the super-elderly. Imagine what that total will be in 2030. The one shining hope is a highly successful program already in existence -- hospice.

Who's watching the kitchen?

Former Pasco County Health Department director, Marc J. Yacht MD, MPH, writes that in the final hour of the session, known only to top ranking public health officials, most remaining health department food service inspections ceased. Not transferred -- but ended.

Football season, and its risks, approach

8/1/2010 © St. Petersburg Times
Bill Maxwell writes that along with the action and the excitement of high school football are serious dangers for the approximately 1.4 million teenagers competing on the fields. Everyone, especially parents, should be concerned.

Medicare physicians treated unfairly

8/1/2010 © South Florida Sun Sentinel
Louis Goodman and Timothy Norbeck write that the ignored problem of health reform is the unfair and outdated method used to pay physicians under the Medicare program, called the "sustainable growth rate."

Medicaid Reform reduces fraud, improves care

Alan Levine says the bad actors at WellCare have been replaced by good people, and it would be a mistake to think Medicaid reform had anything to do with the fraud. In fact, he says, the opposite is true.

A peaceful death: Just what the doctor ordered

FSU geriatrics professor Marshall Kapp tells how health-care providers, caregivers and patient advocates can collaborate to prevent aggressive, pointless end-of-life resuscitation.

ANALYSIS & OPINION

Health News Florida takes no positions on issues or candidates; instead, we post links to editorials, columns and letters that appear in publications around the state. The cartoons also run the gamut of opinions; if you disagree with the one we’ve posted today, you may like the one we post tomorrow.

Unfinished work for mental health, substance abuse system

By David L. Miller
Chair, Florida Substance Abuse & Mental Health Corp.
Florida's only independent body providing oversight of the state's substance abuse and mental health system will shut its doors July 1, the victim of legislative budget cuts.

Left behind will be an unfinished agenda for improving the state's treatment programs for people with mental illnesses and addiction disorders.

Created by the Legislature in 2004 to advise the governor and the Legislature on ways to improve Florida's publicly-funded substance abuse and mental health service system, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Corp. was a bargain.

With an operating budget that never exceeded $300,000, the help of private grants and an unpaid board of directors, the Corporation was able achieve many accomplishments and improvements during its tenure. Forced to make drastic spending cuts, legislators this year eliminated the Corporation's scaled-down request for $190,000 to continue operating.

But there is much more to be done — and it is up to Florida's governor and Legislature to complete the job.

Topping the priorities on the unfinished agenda is the need for the Legislature to sufficiently fund Florida's substance abuse and mental health system. For several years, legislators have found it too easy to cut funding for basic community substance abuse and mental health services.

As a result, each year our publicly-funded treatment system is less able to provide the necessary services and supports for Floridians with mental illnesses and addition disorders.

The lack of services in Florida is shocking and embarrassing, as well as very costly. Our state ranks 49th in per capita spending for mental health care, an abysmal ranking borne out by the thousands of people who cannot get treatment and end up in our jails, prisons and on the streets.

Florida's leaders also must put more emphasis on providing treatment earlier to combat the symptoms of mental illness and chronic substance abuse and to enhance treatment outcomes. Also critical to recovery are support services, such as transitional housing and supportive employment.

Programs that divert people with mental illnesses and substance use disorders from jails and prisons — as well as those that support their successful re-entry back to the community — must also be a priority. Savings from reduced recidivism rates can be used to fund substance abuse and mental health treatment for inmates re-entering their communities.

The impact of mental illnesses and substance use disorders on the criminal justice system at both the state and local level has been enormous. Florida is spending nearly $3 billion a year on prisons alone — 10 percent of the state's general fund. Based on current estimates of mental illness among Florida's prison inmates, 17 percent of those prison beds will be occupied by offenders with a mental health diagnosis.

A significant number of youth with mental health and addiction disorders are also caught up in the juvenile justice system, where treatment services are limited.

The Criminal Justice, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Reinvestment Grant Act created by the Legislature in 2007 funded a number of these innovative and effective community treatment programs around the state.

Grant-funded projects in 12 counties, including Alachua, Broward, Lee, Leon, Miami-Dade, Pinellas and Orange, are demonstrating the value of community-based treatment and rehabilitation programs as an alternative to jails and prisons. These programs are reducing re-arrest rates and saving money without compromising public safety.

Solutions such as these and other best practices in use around the country must be fully implemented across the state if we are to achieve a long-term reduction in jail and prison beds and reduce the number of people incarcerated primarily because of their illnesses or addictions.

Florida needs to make better use of its limited tax dollars by adopting the types of smart justice programs successfully used by Texas, Kansas, Michigan and other states to reduce prison populations.

Clearly, failure to provide effective community-based treatment results in unnecessary deep-end treatment costs, foster care, delinquency, incarceration, and significant long-term adverse economic and social consequences.

Since its inception, the SAMH Corporation has emphasized that treatment and prevention services work. They are a wise investment of tax dollars—returning substantial cost benefits and offsetting other local and state government costs.

It's a simple concept. We hope Florida's leaders will embrace it as they make funding and policy decisions affecting people with mental illnesses and addiction disorders.

David L. Miller, of Land O'Lakes, a retired senior vice president for Florida Power Corp., has been chair of the Florida Substance Abuse & Mental Health Corp., an independent, nonprofit body created by the Legislature, since 2005.