Massachusetts Attorney General and Democratic candidate for governor Martha Coakley is no stranger to mental health issues. In a new campaign video, Coakley evokes the emotions she endured when her own brother suffered from mental health complications in order to reiterate her stance that mental health and substance abuse be treated by more beneficial means.
Coakley’s brother Edward committed suicide in the mid-1990s after suffering from depression and bipolar disorder. She contends that he refused to take treatment largely because of the stigma attached to one who experiences such agony.
Removing the stigma is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her reform plan, should she be elected to succeed Governor Deval Patrick on Beacon Hill. The rest of her plan includes, according to her campaign platform:
Promoting peer support programs and expanding behavioral health education to increase awareness, build understanding in the community, and help eliminate the stigma around mental illness and other behavioral health disorders, particularly among young people and returning veterans.
Once the stigma is removed – helping not only adults but children, teens and veterans live a semblance of a normal life – there are a number of endeavors Coakley intends to tackle in order to give the issue the attention and solutions it deserves.
Among the other proposals in Coakley’s plan are:
- Expanding education and promoting peer support programs to help eliminate the stigma around behavioral health disorders, particularly among young people and returning veterans.
- Making needed investments in patient-centered, community-based behavioral health programs to increase service capacity and allow individuals to access needed services that enable them to remain an active member of their community.
- Working with commercial insurers to increase coverage and reimbursement rates of critical community and school-based services, including outpatient care, transitional services and diversionary care, as well as acute inpatient care and step-down services.
- Effectively integrating behavioral health care and primary care, and promoting payment reforms that support a comprehensive, patient-centered care model.
For more intricate details related to Coakley’s plan, you can check out her full plan below.
Coakley is hardly the most vocal gubernatorial contender emphasizing mental illness and substance abuse. Fellow Democratic hopeful Joe Avellone has proposed two grandiose initiatives should he take the State House this fall. He hopes to create a new cabinet level position, the Office of Recovery, dedicated solely to issues and to fostering a new take on how to mend them. Also, he hopes to launch an assault on substance abuse, in particular, behind a regional coalition that includes all of the political clout of each of New England’s six governors.
Take a look at Coakley’s video above and her overall plan below and let us know your thoughts and opinions in the comments section. In the meantime, stay tuned to BostInno for all news of the governor’s race.
