[HPN] Fw: NAMI Launches "I Vote, I Count" Campaign

[I CAN America]

----- Original Message -----
From: <chris@nami.apollonian.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 5:15 PM
Subject: NAMI E-News NAMI Launches "I Vote, I Count" Campaign



________________________________________________________________________
NAMI E-News               February 8, 2000           Vol. 00-86
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For Immediate Release
February 8, 2000

NAMI LAUNCHES NATIONAL "I VOTE, I COUNT" CAMPAIGN
FOR VOTER REGISTRATION & EDUCATION
--------------------------------------------
People with Mental Illness Represent "Last Frontier" of Civil Rights Movement;
Building on Iowa & New Hampshire, NAMI Seeks Fundamental Change in
America's Mental Healthcare System


Arlington, VA - The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) Monday,
February 7, launched "I Vote, I Count 2000," a national non-partisan campaign
for voter registration and education targeted to people with severe mental
illness, their families and friends-with a goal of building a broad, aggressive
movement for fundamental change in America's mental healthcare system.

At the opening session of NAMI's annual Legislative Conference, approximately
200 leaders from more than 40 states received a special briefing on successful
pilot projects recently completed in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"People with mental illness are the last frontier of the civil rights movement
that has spanned much of this century," declared NAMI executive director Laurie
Flynn.  "Forty-four states still have laws that restrict the right of some
people with treatable brain disorders to vote.  Even if those laws are seldom
applied, they represent stigma, prejudice, and discrimination against people
with mental illness. We intend to challenge them, if necessary, while building a
movement to demonstrate that we count too."

Mental illnesses are biological brain disorders and in many cases today
treatment works-but only if a person can get it.  The treatment success rate for
schizophrenia is 60 percent: higher than the rate for heart disease.  For
bipolar disorder (manic depression) the treatment success rate is 80 percent.

"Mental illnesses kill." Flynn said.  "We are not talking about mental health
problems that come from the stresses of daily life.  We are not talking about
Woody Allen and 30 years of talk therapy.  Too many politicians don't know the
difference and they are confused about priorities in spending taxpayer dollars."

"We need fundamental change in the nation's mental healthcare system," Flynn
continued.  "It is today a system in crisis-and too much like a chamber of
horrors.  Too many people with serious mental illness are dying because they
cannot get adequate treatment.  They are dying in restraints on hospital wards.
They are committing suicide. They are being shot by police or warehoused in
prisons. In rare, but sensational cases, they may kill innocent people, and then
in some cases, face execution, in which senseless, preventable tragedies are
compounded by barbaric injustice."

As NAMI's campaign enters its next phase, the grassroots organization, with more
than 210,000 members and 1,200 affiliates nationwide, intends to focus on South
Carolina's February 19th presidential primary and states like California, New
York, and North Carolina with primaries on "Super Tuesday" (March 7) where
newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, and Charlotte Observer
recently have published extensive investigative series exposing the failures of
the mental healthcare system, or in some cases, the problem of homelessness.

"The presidential candidates are talking a lot about healthcare reform," Flynn
said, "but they aren't saying much about mental illness and the broad, systemic
changes that are needed.  We hope these same newspapers will ask each and every
candidate what they intend to do about the crisis."

But the real focus for NAMI's campaign will be the general election in November
and building movements at the state and local levels to advance its Omnibus
Mental Illness Recovery Act (OMIRA), which contains eight key elements:

· Consumer and family participation in planning mental illness services
· Equitable healthcare coverage (insurance parity)
· Access to newer medications: i.e., requiring healthcare plans to provide all
effective and medically necessary medications
· Financing assertive community treatment programs, including the evidence-based
PACT model
· Work incentives through Medicaid for persons with severe mental illness
· Limit the use of restraints only to emergency safety situations
· Reduction in the criminalization of mental illness, including specialized
police training and mental health courts
· Establish a Mental Illness Housing Assistance Program to provide safe,
affordable housing with community-based services

"Taken together, these eight components can move us toward an accountable system
for providing recovery-oriented treatment and services to people with severe
brain disorders," Flynn noted.  "OMIRA's issues also have federal counterparts.
They are not our entire agenda, but they at least will establish a national
baseline of care that can move the country forward."

In its campaign, NAMI also intends to work in coalition with other groups in the
long-term healthcare and disability communities, including the National Mental
Health Association (NMHA).  Ken Steele, founder of the National Voter
Empowerment Project, whom the New York Times twice profiled last year, addressed
the Legislative Conference during the opening session.

                                                     # # #

          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
          H. C.  Sonny Covington
           I CAN! America,  LLC
          icanamerica@msn.com
          Voice 1.800.678.5774
           Fax   1.505.209.2619
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~