screen-shot-2015-04-07-at-12-09-05-pm-150x150-1001729New Yorkers who haven’t yet filed their 2014 tax returns are about to be reminded that the Empire State’s income tax form is more cluttered than ever—thanks, in part, to a proliferation of voluntary contribution “check-off” boxes.

Since the establishment of the “Return a Gift to Wildlife” fund in 1982, the list of check-offs has expanded to 10 causes, including cancer research, veterans remembrance and the development of the 9/11 memorial.

As if that wasn’t enough, some mental health groups want lawmakers to approve an eleventh checkoff, this one to be known as “Gift for Eliminating the Stigma Relating to Mental Illness.” This page makes the idea sound blandly inoffensive (and duly celebrity-endorsed), if not exactly compelling.

Tax form clutter aside, however, one expert in policy as it applies to the most seriously mentally ill says lending state support to the proposed “anti-stigma” campaign would actually be counterproductive. D.J. Jaffe writes:

The new checkoff is being promoted by the New York State chapter of Mental Health America (MHA) and the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS), which represent contractors who already receive state funds. They say an advertising campaign is needed to counter the “stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness,” which they claim is causing people to avoid seeking needed treatment.

However, research shows that stigma is not a major barrier to care for the most seriously mentally ill. And that’s who we should be doing more to help—the people who need help the most.

In fact, MHA and NYAPRS have a history of raising barriers to treatment for the most seriously mentally ill in New York, and will likely use any tax checkoff proceeds to further impede care. For example, these organizations want state psychiatric hospitals closed and the “savings” to go to their members—although they serve voluntary patients, not the same seriously ill people who would be released from hospitals.

This is a key point: as Jaffe points out, people with severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, don’t avoid treatment out of embarrassment. They avoid treatment because they are (literally) under the delusion that they don’t need it.

Jaffe continues:

Advocates of an anti-stigma tax checkoff oppose expanding Kendra’s Law, which allows judges to order certain seriously mentally ill, historically violent persons to stay in six months of mandated and monitored treatment while they live in the community. This is far more humane than the alternatives, inpatient commitment and hospitalization.

Kendra’s Law has been proven to reduce homelessness, hospitalization, incarceration, and arrest of the seriously mentally ill over 70% each. The New York State Association of Chiefs of Police and the New York State Alliance for the Mentally Ill are strong supporters, even if the trade associations are not. By reducing incarceration and hospitalization, Kendra’s Law saves taxpayers 50 percent of the cost of care. Yet less than 3,000 of the 8,000 New Yorkers who could benefit from Kendra’s Law have access to the services it provides. Expanding funding for treatment under Kendra’s Law would do far more to help patients far more than an anti-stigma check-off.

The mental health trade associations also have been working to overturn the provisions of New York State’s SAFE act that prevent some seriously mentally ill individuals from accessing firearms. In the name of fighting “stigma,” the two trade associations want the news media to aboid even mentioning “mental illness” and “violence” in the same sentence. This is nonsense. Keeping guns away from people with serious mental illness will keep everyone safer, thereby reducing stigma.

By one carefully researched standard, New York State is short 4,000 psychiatric beds for the seriously ill. Supported housing is also in short supply, as are psychiatric case managers. If the Legislature is going to establish any kind of funding pool for mental health, the money should go towards treatment of the most seriously mentally ill, starting with those potentially covered by Kendra’s Law.

In other words, New York needs mental health policies more focused on treating the relatively small number of persons who are severely ill, not yet another tax check-off to finance a feel-better advertising campaign for the masses.

About the Author

E.J. McMahon

Edmund J. McMahon is Empire Center's founder and a senior fellow.

Read more by E.J. McMahon

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