Treating mental illness no longer a priority - and that's going to have consequences

From Mother Jones - click on the link to read more.

These six states and the District of Columbia made the deepest cuts to their mental health budgets.

(So, conservatives claim that we don't need to control guns because it is mentally ill people who do the shooting with guns and so we need to do more to care for the mentally ill. How's that working out for us in our austerity years?)

South Carolina ($187.3 million in 2009 to $113.7 million in 2012, -39.3 percent): The director of the local NAMI chapter says the state's mental-health department is "approaching crisis mode with funding at 1987 levels." After closing community mental-health centers and reducing services at its remaining facilities, the department is now serving thousands fewer patients.

Alabama ($100.3 million in 2009 to $64.2 million in 2012, -36 percent): Alabama has one of the lowest numbers of psychiatrists [PDF] per capita in the nation. Despite rising demand for psychiatric hospital beds, Alabama plans to close most of its state mental hospitals this spring, laying off 948 employees.

Alaska ($125.6 million in 2009 to $84.7 million in 2012, -32.6 percent): Alaska has the nation's No. 2 suicide rate-and a massive mental-health workforce shortage. Sometimes there is not a single psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse [PDF] available at the mental-health center in Fairbanks, the state's second-largest city.

Illinois ($590.7 million in 2009 to $403.7 million in 2012, $-31.7 percent): Illinois has more mentally ill people living in nursing homes than any other state. In 2010, the state settled a class-action civil rights lawsuit, agreeing to help 5,000 of them transition into community programs within five years. As of July 2012, only 45 people had moved.

Nevada ($175.5 million in 2009 to $126.2 million in 2012, -28.1 percent): In 2003, Reno police calculated how much it cost the county to repeatedly pick up and hospitalize Murray Barr, a homeless man with an alcohol addiction. Tallying up doctors' fees and other expenses from his decade on the streets, Barr racked up a $1 million bill.

District of Columbia ($212.4 million in 2009 to $161.6 million in 2012, -23.9 percent): Children on Medicaid wait 10 weeks-or one-third of the school year-for an appointment with a Children's National Medical Center community clinic psychiatrist.

California ($3,612.8 million in 2009 to $2,848 million in 2012, -21.2 percent): Inmates with severe mental illness often wait three to six months for a state psychiatric hospital bed. In 2007, 19 percent of state prisoners were mentally ill. By 2012, 25 percent were.