Governor Rick Snyder has put forth a proposal to privatize all or part of Michigan's mental health system. The governor has suggested $2.4 billion be shifted to Medicaid HMOs rather than public mental health organizations, according to reports in Crain’s Detroit Business.
Lieutenant Gov. Brian Calley has been heading up discussions with work group of public mental health agencies and advocacy groups. But it appears those talks have broken down.
Mental health advocates Kevin Fischer and Dohn Hoyle joined Stateside to talk about why the talks have broken down.
"There's not been anything that we've seen ... that leads us to believe that the governor's original [mental health funding] plan makes any sense," Hoyle said.
Listen to the full interview above to hear about how our guests, and Lt. Gov. Calley, would like to see the money managed, and what they feel the dangers are with privatizing mental health care.
GUEST Kevin Fischer is president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Dohn Hoyle? is director of Public Policy for The Arc, an advocate organization for those with developmental disabilities.
(Subscribe to the Stateside podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or with this RSS link)
