Caseworker Cheryl Boone listens to a client during a therapy session at the Johnson County Mental Health Center on in Shawnee, Kan. Lawmakers across the nation are rethinking cuts in mental health care spending in the wake of recent shootings.DES MOINES, Iowa – Dozens of states have slashed spending on mental health care over the last four years, driven by the recession’s toll on revenue and, in some cases, a new zeal to shrink government.
But that trend may be heading for a U-turn in 2013 after last year’s shooting rampages by two mentally disturbed gunmen.
The reversal is especially jarring in statehouses dominated by conservative Republicans, who aggressively cut welfare programs but now find themselves caught in a crosscurrent of pressures involving gun control, public safety and health care for millions of disadvantaged Americans.
In many states, lawmakers have begun to recognize that their cuts “may have gone too deep,” said Shelley Chandler, executive director of the Iowa Alliance of Community Providers. “People start talking when there’s a crisis.”
About 30 states have reduced mental health spending since 2008, when revenues were in steep decline, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. In a third of those states, the cuts surpassed 10 percent.