|
Sweeping Legislation
A year after student Seung Hui Cho killed fellow students and teachers at Virginia Tech, Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine has signed into law over two dozen bills aimed at reforming the state mental health system. The legislative bars mentally ill individuals from buying guns, requires mental health officials to keep track of individuals who are treated in the community and allows providers and court officials to more easily share information in order to better monitor people in treatment. The legislation also brings Virginia into line with most other states by lowering the standard under which an ill person can be forced into treatment. Cho had been ruled a danger to himself in 2005 and was ordered to receive mental health treatment but never did. “[The legislation] takes care of the mental health problems that allowed Cho to work his way through this labyrinth of what existed in the way of mental health services and get in a position of creating havoc," Delegate C. Charles Caputo, told the Washington Post. “The risk of that happening again as a result of this legislation is extremely minimized.” To support the reforms, the General Assembly last month passed a spending plan that included an increase of $42 million for more caseworkers, psychiatrists and other staff to treat and monitor the mentally ill.
Budget Crunch
States collected fewer tax revenues during the fourth quarter of 2007 than in almost five years, according to new data released by the Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government. And, for the first time since the 1990s, inflation for state and local governments grew substantially faster than for the economy. As a result, at least half of U.S. states are facing budgetary shortfalls, forcing lawmakers to consider “often painful” cuts in funding for health care and other programs to reduce spending and eliminate deficits, the Washington Post reports.
Free Meds
Low-income West Virginians who lack drug coverage will be able to get free prescription drugs under a new partnership between drug companies and free clinics. The new West Virginia Rx program is now enrolling medical providers all over the state who want to provide qualifying patients with free pharmaceuticals, Debbie Enigk of Mercer Health Right told the Register-Herald. “The point is that this is a program that all doctors and nurse practitioners in West Virginia can participate,” Enigk said. “The doctor gets enrolled as a provider, and then once he is enrolled, he can enroll his patients that qualify. This is statewide.” Free clinics like Mercer Health Right will continue helping local people with their medicines but the new program is exclusively mail order, which means residents not near a free clinic can still obtain their prescriptions. Patients will be required to pay a one- time $30 application processing fee and show proof of their household income through sources such as a payroll stub or a Social Security determination letter. Approximately half a million West Virginians—30 percent of the state’s residents—lack prescription drug coverage. Physicians who want to enroll as providers in the West Virginia RX program can go to its website at www.wvrx.org or call (304) 414-5935.
© Copyright 2008, State Health Notes
|
