The Pew Charitable Trusts - State and Consumer Initiatives about

States Tackle Mental Illness and Gun Ownership

New York’s new gun law requires mental health providers to report on dangerous patients. Will the law harm treatment?

Health Care Cuts From Vaccinations to Research

Automatic cuts to federal health-care programs may make it more difficult for low-income Americans to get maternal and infant care, vaccinate their children, and receive treatment for mental illness.

States Tackle School Safety After Sandy Hook Shootings

At least 20 states are considering bills that would allow some teachers to be armed. Others are focusing on emergency plans and mental health checks.

Easiest Path to Mental Health Funding May Be Medicaid Expansion

Even after mass shootings have shed light on the inadequacy of mental health services, states are unlikely to come up with much new money. But the federal government might, through Medicaid expansion.

Parity for Behavioral Health Coverage Delayed by Lack of Federal Rules

Congress passed a mental health and drug treatment parity law four years ago, but state enforcement is stymied by the Obama Administration’s failure to issue rules.

Oklahoma Looks for Ways to Keep Mentally Ill Ex-offenders Out of Prison

The mentally ill account for an ever-greater portion of prison populations. Oklahoma has had success in preventing former inmates with mental problems from being incarcerated again.

States Crack Down on Mental Health Prescriptions

Medicaid is saving substantial amounts of money by limiting access to behavioral medications. But is it fair to the patients?

Mental Health Funding Decreases in Many States

TODAY'S TAKE: General fund spending on mental health programs declined in more than half the states over the last three years, according to a new report. Nine states cut funding by more than 10 percent.

Funding Children's Dental Care

The Pew Children’s Dental Campaign is partnering with dental provider associations, consumer groups and children’s advocates at the state and federal levels to increase federal support for Medicaid and CHIP and ensure federal requirements make it easier for states to operate successful dental programs.

Maine Republican Legislators Contemplate End to Labor Committee

TRANSITION WATCH: Maine Republicans seek to fold historic panel, Connecticut's pension gap gets bigger, and more news of the historic shift in power in the states.

As Economy Takes Toll, Mental Health Budgets Shrink

Funding for mental health services used to go up, in good times and bad. Now, states are cutting back. The result is longer waiting lists for certain services and a growing risk that more people will wind up in hospital emergency rooms, homeless shelters and jails.

Summary of the Washington State of the State Address

"Jobs are the way out of this recession," Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) told the Democratic-led Legislature in her state of the state address Jan. 12, laying out a series of proposals she said would create as many as 40,000 new jobs this year.

Mass. Health Connector, Other Innovations Honored

As the Obama administration and Congress debate the details of a national health care plan, the state that paved the way for universal coverage was honored in Washington, D.C.

Ga. Hotline Aims to Cut Mental Health Costs

Even as the recession chips away at mental health services across the country, Georgia's around-the-clock psychiatric hotline is finding a way to weather the storm - and other states are watching closely.

New Courts Tailored to War Veterans

Twenty years after local officials in Miami opened the nation's first drug court - a specialized "treatment court" aimed at rehabilitating low-level drug offenders instead of locking them up - state lawmakers in Illinois and Nevada are applying the same idea to a different population: war veterans who have had run-ins with the law.

Treating Mental Illness Burning State Issue

Depressed? Anxious? If you seek treatment, your private health insurance might not cover your treatment in the same way it pays for other illnesses, depending on what state you live in. But for most people getting mental health services, Medicaid, the fastest growing component of a state budget, is picking up the tab.

Governors Commit to Medicaid, High School Reforms

The nation's governors wrapped up four days of meetings in Washington, D.C., and came away with homework. They agreed to two urgent tasks: coming up with a bipartisan plan to fix Medicaid and taking steps to make high school more demanding. Governors will see how they measure up on both fronts when they meet again this summer in Iowa.

Governors Call on Congress to Cover Dual-Eligibles

Illustrating the strain of health care costs on state budgets, the nation's governors on Friday (8/1) unanimously called for the federal government to assume responsibility for the more than 6 million poor, elderly Americans 'dually eligible' for both Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor and disabled, and Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly.

Mental Health Patients Lost in Budget Gap

Across the country, mental health advocates are watching states scale back on services for those suffering from mental illnesses, eroding the quality of care in what many advocates and officials believe is an already under-funded area of state government.

Insight Key To Stemming School Shootings, Study Says

Six of the eight children involved in the worst school massacres in US history, including Paducah, Jonesboro and Columbine, had mental illnesses that could have been treated had they been detected, according to a National Research Council report.

Priorities 2000: An Arizona View

Arizona Gov. Jane Hull has called her legislature into special session to try to get funding for a new state hospital for the mentally ill. And Hull says she will continue to pursue the issue in the coming year. More in the Arizona governor's agenda in year 2000 -- in her own words.

More States Requiring Mental Health Benefits For Insurees

More and more states are requiring that health insurers cover the costs of mental illnesses as well as physical ailments, but so-called "mental health parity" laws are not all created equal. The laws exist in 25 states and range from measures that require coverage of all mental health and substance abuse problems -- Vermont has one of these -- to bare bones versions whose scope is limited. One of these passed the Nevada legislature last week and now awaits the signature of Gov. Kenny Guinn. For more information on mental health parity laws, click on