I just finished listening to it, I think the former US Representative made a decent guess at the unnamed “NAMI co-founder”'s possible thought. Some people think removing the exclusion will set us back to the dark ages of asylum care. His point was well made - is it better now when our family members are in prison or on the streets?
IMD - institution for mental disease - EXCLUSION
NAMI is tricky, they do us a great service with Family to Family but you really have to watch their political motives. Too often NAMI has excluded our family members with severe mental diseases from their list of priorities.
The IMD Exclusion is outright discrimination against people with mental diseases. It is the only part of the Medicaid program that doesn’t pay for medically necessary care simply because of the type of illness being treated.
Everyone always wonders why there aren’t enough hospital beds when our family members need one - its because the hospitals can’t get paid if they have too many beds occupied with our family members. If hospitals could get paid for taking care of our family members without a limit, it would be an entirely new ball game bedwise.
That was the first time I have heard anyone explain the stovepipe “rule”. It never made sense to me that why we couldn’t get legislation passed that would actually save money in the future, well, now I know.
I look forward to watching the others.