S02.E29: Mental Health in the United States

[Athena]

Segments: Russian-led military intervention in Syria, 2015 UN general assembly debate, Jason Chaffetz, Mental health in the United States, Peeple mobile application.

[bmoore4026]

Well, someone should break the ice, so I might as well tell you what I think.

 

I think some politicians would like mental homes brought back, even though Reagan was the one who had them closed because of how the patients placed in such institutions were treated.

 

Some politicians would prefer to have someone like me (or my mother or many of my family) put in prison for no crime save for being "a little off".

 

The terrible irony is that these same politicians are always wanting to defund Medicare and Medicaid, thus depriving people who need help the funds to do so.

 

I know this is supposed to be a comedy show, but I'm so fucking depressed now.

[peeayebee]

Yeah, it was kind of depressing. Whenever John made a joke, it really felt out of place.

 

Anything that helps people but doesn't generate money is ignored or denigrated by the Repubs.

[biakbiak]

I also felt a huge missing element was the fact that he didn't address "the street" as one of the places where mental health patients end up. It was touched on with "Greyhound" therapy but given mental health issues is so large in that population it felt odd.

[Delwyn]

What a weirdly paced show. The Mental Illness piece felt like a grab bag of issues that never came together into anything: gun control; prisons; institutions; aftercare; the fact that first responders are not trained in mental health but are usually the first point of contact for those in need of help; the lack of any reform. Lots of rage inducing things with no follow through, broken up by almost unrelated jokes. It was all over the place and probably would have benefited from focusing on a single aspect in order to do it any kind of justice. And then it just kind of ended and started making fun of Peeple. Not great, show. Maybe another story fell through?

I did laugh really loudly (maybe in relief?) at the line about the taxi driver's reaction to Peeple, and how maybe the sound of a person's soul leaving their body is not the endorsement they think it is.

[snowwhyte]

I can't believe the people app. There was an episode of Community where they introduced a people rating app called meowmeowbeanz and everyone became divided by their ratings. I really can't believe someone thought that was a good idea. The peeble app is great though, love Mario Van Peebles.

[peeayebee]

How could I forget about meowmeowbeanz? You're right. This Peeple app sounds just like it.

[alexvillage]

I cancelled my cable so I only get the clips from the show when friends send them to me. I know that for activists in the disability community the piece was spot on. Everything that is true and wrong and factual is there. Maybe for people who are not involved with disabilities might have felt a little too much, a little too confusing. To me (hoping to be an ally), and most of my friends (who are disabled) it hit high marks

[possibilities]

Just watched the mental health piece on YouTube.

 

I love this guy! I can't get over how he just never quits going after things that other people with as big a megaphone don't bother with, but which have been the focus of hardcore activists and everyday people's lives for what seems like FOREVER. And along comes LWT and suddenly there's traction.

 

It seems like people actually listen and often, though not as often as I'd like, the issues he showcases actually do budge in terms of real world action. We'll see what happens this time, but even if not much does, I still give him credit for boiling it down and spelling it out without the usual excuses and confusion.

 

Has LWT gotten a Peabody yet? It should.

[Hanahope]

I also thought the mental health piece was a bit scattered, it was hard to focus on it.  I do wonder what the Republicans seriously want to do about the problem.  I suppose its along the lines of defund all mental health programs and/or ignore it, let the mental ill go out on the street, where inevitably someone will accuse them of something criminal, they'll get convicted because they are poor and don't understand what is happening (and have a poorly paid public defender) and get sent to one of those for-profit prisons where they become essentially slave labor to line the pockets of the prison corporation CEO and shareholders (most likely republicans).

[dusang]

Has LWT gotten a Peabody yet? It should.

 

It has.

[Brandi Maxxxx]

There's a TV show in Australia called The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, which many people have labelled a Last Week Tonight copycat. The Weekly did a similar piece about mental illness about a month ago, so I guess they're even now.

[Victor the Crab]

I was kinda hoping Ollie would have done a follow up on Noujain Moustaffa. It would have been a nice chaser after the sad depressing story on mental health.

[rwlevin]

I'm dealing with the mental health issue right now. About a year and a half ago my old insurance (which ran out last month) decided they would only pay for emergent mental health issues. Now did they tell me this? No. I only found out about it in May when my doctor told me they would no longer accept my insurance. And why? Because after 3 appeals, my insurance would still reject the mental health visits. It makes more sense for a health insurance program to deny mental health coverage to a person who is stable and would rather pay for said person to become unstable and need emergency room visits and hospital admissions which cost 10 times more than the visits themselves. Say what? Long story short...I just got a handful of bills totaling more than $2000 dating back to the beginning of January 2014 because my insurance refused to pay.

 

So I'm glad John Oliver is talking about mental health. But he's right. The mentally ill people are more in danger of getting injured than they are of injuring people. And I'm tired of people using mental health issues as an excuse to our too high number of mass killings.

[blueray]

I heard about that people thing and was offended. Why would someone come up with such a horrible idea. I can't think of one thing that would be good to come out of it.

 

Anyhow, I'm glad he did something on mental health in this country, because there are a lot of issues with the programs we have here. And if there are good ones there tends to be budget cuts.

[Delwyn]

I know that for activists in the disability community the piece was spot on. Everything that is true and wrong and factual is there. Maybe for people who are not involved with disabilities might have felt a little too much, a little too confusing. To me (hoping to be an ally), and most of my friends (who are disabled) it hit high marks

I completely agree with you, in the sense that he very accurately portrayed all the facts and good on them for bringing up stuff no one wants to acknowledge or deal with. I have a great deal of experience with the mental health system (in Canada at least, so I can't really speak to the mass shooting blame aspect as much), so it wasn't at all confusing to me - just a disjointedly assembled story. I applaud the show for tackling the topic, but what I was getting at (maybe not clearly, sorry) is that in the past they put more care, obsessive research and overall production value into topics like Miss America and FIFA. Any attention at all for this serious problem is very welcome. I just think it deserved the same kind of deep-dive treatment topics usually get: John generally walks us through the how, the why, the repercussions, etc. I personally felt like someone who didn't have their own stake in these awful facts wouldn't walk away feeling more connected and involved, like so many people did with Food Waste.

I guess I'm complaining that LWT didn't do enough to focus my rage? I'll shut up now.

[Slovenly Muse]

 

I applaud the show for tackling the topic, but what I was getting at (maybe not clearly, sorry) is that in the past they put more care, obsessive research and overall production value into topics like Miss America and FIFA. Any attention at all for this serious problem is very welcome. I just think it deserved the same kind of deep-dive treatment topics usually get: John generally walks us through the how, the why, the repercussions, etc. I personally felt like someone who didn't have their own stake in these awful facts wouldn't walk away feeling more connected and involved, like so many people did with Food Waste.

 

Hey! Jumping in here to say that I'm hearing what you're saying. While I was really happy that John tackled this topic, the thing that I noticed that was glaringly absent from it were the people affected. Normally, he shares stories of people who have been really hurt or let down by the system he is discussing, and does his best to not only describe the suffering that is occurring as a result of this system, but to put a human face on that suffering. All through the segment I kept waiting to hear from people who deal with mental illness (either themselves or someone close to them) and were not being served by the system. I think it really would have helped the piece to gel if he had included clips showing either people's real frustration at not having access to what they need, or their relief when the scant services do come through for them. I understand that people may not feel comfortable talking about this kind of thing on television given the social stigma attached, but surely there could have been a way to do more to bring some heart to this piece, alongside its statistics and very important information.

[OneWhoLurks]

San Francisco’s more than two-year legal battle with Nevada over the state’s practice of sending psychiatric patients to The City has reached a conclusion in a $400,000 settlement pending approval by the Board of Supervisors and the state of Nevada.

 

[...]

 

“Over the past five years, the state of Nevada has transferred to other states approximately 1,500 patients discharged from its state-run Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital, including 500 patients that Nevada sent by Greyhound bus to cities and counties in California,” said the lawsuit filed September 2013 by Herrera in San Francisco Superior Court. The revelations led to the loss of the hospital’s accreditation. It has since been reaccredited.

 

 

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-reaches-400k-settlement-proposal-in-nevada-patient-dumping-case/

[possibilities]

If they rushed the mental health topic to air, it was probably to combat the immediate situation, where the media is once again blaming "mentally ill" people for the Oregon massacre. Someone needed to say that was BS and try to inject some kind of counterbalance to the discourse. Maybe they will have a part 2, where they go into it some more. I think this issue affects so many people, it's almost unbelievable that it's not more talked about. But the stigma is so great, that even some of the people who are affected have bought into the idea that they are worthless, or are too stressed out to organize or too afraid to speak up, or have just plain given up, and the rest are still not being listened to sufficiently. There are a lot of organizations working on this issue, and it's pretty incredible just how little it gets solved despite that.

[Hanahope]

It makes more sense for a health insurance program to deny mental health coverage to a person who is stable and would rather pay for said person to become unstable and need emergency room visits and hospital admissions which cost 10 times more than the visits themselves. Say what?

 

Unfortunately, that's the case with a lot of health insurance for a few reasons.  1. they are more interested in 'short term' profits, so if it saves money in the short term, that's better than the potential longer-term costs down the road, which will be some other CEO's problem (as CEOs tend only stay a few years at each company before they move on to another company - with their golden parachute/buy-out package).  2.  they gamble that you will never become unstable and need emergency room care.  3. they argue that you should cover you're own 'maintenance' costs, that insurance is only for emergencies and/or unexpected treatment (i.e. the auto-insurance comparison).

[Wax Lion]

On a small tangent, while Jason Chaffez chart was stupid and disingenuous, I'm fine with the lack of a y-axis. Yes, that's your first warning to a deceptive chart but it had the one thing that makes skipping the y-axis okay -- it has datapoint labels, which is why people quickly picked out what was wrong. Of course, whenever the trendlines are so perfectly symmetrical, there's a good chance you're being lied to.

 

That said, I wish someone would go after Chaffez for his smug "I got this off of your website!" when it was clear he didn't, as seen in the sourcing label. That someone who deserves to be laughed out of any serious discourse.

[attica]

That someone who deserves to be laughed out of any serious discourse.

 

Plus, he has the hamstring strength of a newborn.

[Victor the Crab]

That said, I wish someone would go after Chaffez for his smug "I got this off of your website!" when it was clear he didn't, as seen in the sourcing label. That someone who deserves to be laughed out of any serious discourse.

 

Him and Kevin McCarthy, who admitted in public last week that the Benghazi hearings were just a ruse to discredit Hillary Clinton and her presidential campaign and who seems to suffer from Sarahpalintitus where the victim says stupid shit without realizing just how stupid it is.

 

The problem is both these dumbfucks are serious contenders to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House - which would make that person the next in line for the presidency should anything happen to both Obama and Biden. Sleep tight America.

[fastiller]

The problem is both these dumbfucks are serious contenders to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House - which would make that person the next in line for the presidency should anything happen to both Obama and Biden. Sleep tight America.

 

Did you ever think there'd be a time when we'd look at Boehner and wish he'd not gone away.  (I know he's not gone yet.  Just the idea that there are dumbfucks that make him look positively "statesmanlike" is weird.)

[OneWhoLurks]

The University of Miami copies John Oliver's website idea: http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/10/6/9467793/miami-is-inviting-fsu-fans-to-say-what-they-want

 

Four days after a wave of Internet outrage swamped her and her nascent company, Julia Cordray — CEO of forthcoming people-rating app Peeple — has decided to rethink the app’s concept entirely.

 

In a post published to LinkedIn on Sunday, Cordray said that the app will be “100% OPT-IN” when it launches in November. She also said that users will need to approve all reviews, meaning that there will no longer be a way to leave abusive, critical or otherwise negative comments.

 

“We will not be shamed into submission,” Cordray told The Washington Post in an e-mail Monday morning.

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/10/05/after-internet-backlash-peeple-co-founder-will-revise-her-app-to-make-it-positive/

 

 

[b2H]

Him and Kevin McCarthy, who admitted in public last week that the Benghazi hearings were just a ruse to discredit Hillary Clinton and her presidential campaign and who seems to suffer from Sarahpalintitus where the victim says stupid shit without realizing just how stupid it is.

 

The problem is both these dumbfucks are serious contenders to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House - which would make that person the next in line for the presidency should anything happen to both Obama and Biden. Sleep tight America.

 

As you might've seen on the news, McCarthy dropped out of the running.  Apparently there's a little problem of an extramarital activity with a Congresswoman that was being threatened with revelation if he ran.  So he's gone.

 

I think, based on this, I'd love for Ollie to do a piece on the party of Family Values and just how 'extensive' those 'families' can sometimes be.