The White House will ask Congress for a 24 percent increase in funding for mental health block grants to states in the next year, Tipper Gore announced yesterday in a speech at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
Gore -- the wife of Vice President Al Gore and the mental health advisor to President Bill Clinton -- visited the DHMC psychiatry ward and spoke at a session attended by approximately 120 people, including Dartmouth College President James Wright and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop '37.
The proposal, if approved by Congress, will help "improve access to prevention and treatment that we know works," in the fight to treat mental health disorders, Gore said.
It will also help states "launch innovative community-based" programs to help children and minorities afflicted with mental illness, she said.
The official announcement of federal funding was made on Wednesday rather than at yesterday's meeting as originally planned in response to plans by The New York Times to run the story on the day of the Gore was allotted to speak.
In addition, Gore told the audience yesterday the Clinton administration wants to eliminate discrimination in the workplace and in health-care against people with mental illnesses.
Clinton will ask the Office of Federal Management to hire more people with mental illnesses and to classify mental handicaps similar to physical ones in exemptions from competitive hiring practices, Gore said.
She also announced the first annual White House Conference on Mental Health, to be held this spring.
Gore highlighted the Clinton-Gore administration's commitment to fighting the stigmas attached to mental illness and helping people with these illness to lead normal lives.
Clinton and Vice President Gore have often said "we don't have a person to waste" in respects to mental illnesses, she said.
Gore praised the passage of the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act and the imminent release of the first Surgeon General's report on mental health.
She said the Clinton administration hopes to give $1000-dollar tax credits to families dealing with mental health issues. Money for support services, including counseling to respite care, will also be important, she added.
In addition, the administration is still pressing for a Patients' Bill of Rights, a listing that will aid in ensuring stability in health care for people with mental illnesses.
People with mental illnesses want to make the most of their lives, Gore said, calling it the "normal American Dream."
The country is turning a corner in the way it views mental illness, she said, but "we have a lot we have got to do as a nation."
The successful treatment record for mental illnesses is high compared to those of heart problems or cancer, she added.
Gore visited not only DHMC but Nashua and Concord as well in her one-day swing through New Hampshire.
She said she was pleased to be speaking at Dartmouth since "DHMC is leading the way in the country's ever-expanding knowledge base" about mental health" and "breaking new ground" in mental health research.
Her husband spoke in Hanover last Fall term at the bicentennial celebration of the Dartmouth Medical School.
