Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed • Hacker News Board

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#41

Post by cloudjacker » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

__jal wrote: post #14

leekh wrote: post #2

Why cut these services?! Is Florida going to add more police, social workers, ER doctors and etc deal with the consequences?

Because one political party, currently mostly ruling Florida, has made a core mission out of defunding anything that benefits anyone not already wealthy, not part of a small set of favored programs, or "defense"[1] spending. People with mental issues don't make political donations, rarely vote, and can't defend themselves. QED. [1] We can argue about which was really the the last defensive war fought by the US, but b…

Why would a political party in florida have anything to do with florida's budget on defense spending

states don't spend any money on defense

sounds like you had something to say, but got lost along the way

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#42

Post by zachrose » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #34

_nullandnull_ wrote: post #8

This is just sad. Didn't something similar happen with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s? http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-men... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/timeline-mental-...

Was it Ronald Reagan or Nurse Ratched? Or both ( in series )?

Foucault, then One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, then Reagan.

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#43

Post by aab0 » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:14 PM UTC

_nullandnull_ wrote: post #8

This is just sad. Didn't something similar happen with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s? http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-men... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/timeline-mental-...

Scott Alexander, a psychiatrist, has written some interesting material on the deinstitutionalization movement: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/31/book-review-my-brother-... http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/07/reverse-voxsplaining-pr...

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#44

Post by __jal » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:19 PM UTC

cloudjacker wrote: post #41

__jal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because one political party, currently mostly ruling Florida, has made a core mission out of defunding anything that benefits anyone not already wealthy, not part of a small set of favored programs, or "defense"[1] spending. People with mental issues don't make political donations, rarely vote, and can't defend themselves. QED. [1] We can argue about which was really the the last defensive war fought by the US, but b…

Why would a political party in florida have anything to do with florida's budget on defense spending states don't spend any money on defense sounds like you had something to say, but got lost along the way

Perhaps.

Or perhaps you are choosing to interpret my words in a way that leads to a silly result.

The much more obvious reading starts with noting that the party ruling Florida is the same party that also happens to have policy positions that are of a piece at the local, state and national level positions.

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#45

Post by Keverw » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

What do mental health services do anyways? Just give kids meth in a pill for not paying attention to boring school topics?

You can be locked up, drugged, shocked, lobotomized. No rights to an attorney, not even a one phone call. I really believe the whole psychiatric industry is a fraud. Leon Eisenberg admitted ADHD being fake when he died.

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#46

Post by eagsalazar2 » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:36 PM UTC

connoredel wrote: post #23

mrits wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one route to nationalization. Increase regulation, make impossible to manage until nobody believes the company can do the job, then add it to your political platform.

Don't know why you're being downvoted. You astutely point out that just as defunding can cause a move toward privatization (or the belief that only private enterprise can solve a given problem), so too can overregulation lead toward nationalization (or even at state/local levels, the belief that only government can solve it).

Because some people feel that businesses being strangled by regulation is a favorite straw man those in favor of deregulation trot out to protect their interests. The original scenario, at least in the opinions of some people, is a nice summary of the abuses of privatization while the down voted scenario is a right wing bogeyman meant to scare the ignorant into voting against their own interests. (In some people's opinion)

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#47

Post by madelinecameron » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:36 PM UTC

Keverw wrote: post #45

What do mental health services do anyways? Just give kids meth in a pill for not paying attention to boring school topics? You can be locked up, drugged, shocked, lobotomized. No rights to an attorney, not even a one phone call. I really believe the whole psychiatric industry is a fraud. Leon Eisenberg admitted ADHD being fake when he died.

If your purview of mental health starts and stops at ADD/ADHD, you aren't really qualified to write off all of psychology.

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#48

Post by honkhonkpants » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #29

leekh wrote: post #2

Why cut these services?! Is Florida going to add more police, social workers, ER doctors and etc deal with the consequences?

>Is Florida going to add more police, social workers, ER doctors and etc deal with the consequences? no. Like all the others it will add more prisons. Prison guards unions and commercial prison providers are doing exceptionally well financially and the prison guard unions are actually the biggest and most powerful lobbyists, at least in CA. There is no such thing as decrease of spending, there are only increase and r…

I've never heard of the correctional officers' union (CCPOA) being a top lobbyist. I don't see it anywhere on this list, which puts it out of the top 100.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...

Edit: I can't find any primary sources regarding lobbying by the CCPOA, but I did find a blog on a site called Union Watch that makes the claim about CCPOA being the largest lobbyist, and then I saw that quotes in Reason, and the a lot of people quoting Reason. So, right-wing echo chamber in action as far as I can tell.

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#49

Post by will_brown » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:47 PM UTC

I am not sure the answer is framing this as a Left/Right issue like a lot of the thread is doing.

The underlying reason for cuts in Mental Health is the same reason 1,000 State jobs got eliminated this year or $1.2B was cut from FL education the Governor's first year...it is a finite budget problem.

Take the Zika virus, a current South Florida news story gaining national attention. I haven't seen a single news spot/article mention how Zika is linked to the budget cuts (State and local) that gutted mosquito controlling programs. There is no mention how before Zika, in 2009 under former Governor Crist the budget cuts for mosquito control lead to a Dengue outbreak (~4,000 cases). Yet about $5.5M in mosquito control cuts lead to a $5.5B (10%) loss in FL tourism in 2009, these are not calculated political decision of the Right, but difficult budget decision that had horrendous consequences.

To really put it in perspective, Crist later ran for Senate as an Independent and then re-ran for Governor as a Democrat with full support of Obama...party affiliation would not have changed the decisions he made as a Republican Governor. Further take the $1.2B education cut the first year of the new Governor, since then he has fully restored that amount and then some, why? Not because as a member of the Right he changed his political ideology towards education, but the reality is FL is $200B in debt; however, we are no longer running a $3.5B deficit, in fact not only is the budget balanced this year FL is projected to have a surplus and that has allowed the Governor to restore education funding.

Re: Florida cut $100M from its mental hospitals – chaos followed

#50

Post by astrodust » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 10:52 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #49

I am not sure the answer is framing this as a Left/Right issue like a lot of the thread is doing. The underlying reason for cuts in Mental Health is the same reason 1,000 State jobs got eliminated this year or $1.2B was cut from FL education the Governor's first year...it is a finite budget problem. Take the Zika virus, a current South Florida news story gaining national attention. I haven't seen a single news spot/a…

"Most of the state will be part of the ocean within fifty years, but don't worry people, we've slashed services so the budget's balanced and your taxes won't go up."

Sometimes you need to spend money to protect against a future where the costs are even higher. The mosquito control initiative could have paid for itself with the sales taxes on that $5.5B in revenue that never happened.