 Y'all want the real T? How about that Donald Trump does not give a fudge about mental health? What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. Typically what I do is I try to provide tips and tools from my personal experience to try to help you improve your emotional and mental well-being. But I also advocate for mental health. So if you're into that stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah in this video we are going to be talking about Donald Trump's actions versus his words when it comes to mental health in the United States. So recently after the Mueller investigation Donald Trump has just been on this thing where he's just like going after all these different things but he's talking about repealing Obamacare again. And Obamacare is more formally known as the Affordable Care Act. And that's something that we really need to talk about. If you are watching this and you care about mental health care, if you care about getting help for people who have mental illnesses, you need to care about this subject. So the first thing that I will just get out of the way is this. Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is not perfect. It is not perfect. It needs to be adjusted, rearranged, some things need to change. That is my personal opinion on that matter. But the issue that I find is that a lot of people are forgetting what the Affordable Care Act did for mental health care. All right. And I put up a poll the other day about how many of you have political anxiety. A lot of you said you do. And I was actually surprised. And a lot of you just are afraid to talk about anything political because it turns into a fight. I will be doing a video on that. All right. So do me a favor down in the comments below. Please try to be respectful of each other. But the main thing I just want to talk about is I've seen a problem over the last few years where people can no longer have a debate or conversation with opposing views without it escalating into something purely ridiculous and childish. So just try to have an adult conversation, share points of views and all that. All right. So yeah, let's get into this. So again, Donald Trump is going after the Affordable Care Act again and he wants to repeal it. All right. So let's talk about this. So when the Affordable Care Act went into play, there was a part of it that is for people with mental health issues. So this first article I want to read a clip for you from is from mentalhealth.gov. Okay. And it's a Q&A and it says, does the Affordable Care Act require insurance plans to cover mental health benefits? Answer. As of 2014, most individual and small group health insurance plans including plans sold on the marketplace are required to cover mental health and substance use disorder services. Medicaid alternative benefit plans also must cover mental health and substance abuse disorder services. These plans must have coverages of essential health benefits, which include 10 categories of benefits as defined under the healthcare law. One of those categories is mental health and substance use disorder services. Another is rehabilitative and habilitative services. Additionally, these plans must comply with mental health and substance use parity requirements as set forth in MHPAEA, meaning coverage for mental health and substance use services generally cannot be more restrictive than coverage for medical and surgical services. So what does that mean? What does that mean? What that means is the Affordable Care Act by law, by law insurance companies have to cover mental health care, which includes substance abuse treatment. All right. Like think about that. Like I don't think people necessarily understand. So there is this huge debate going on, which a lot of people aren't even aware of, when it comes to mental health issues and substance abuse issues, where there are people out there who don't think that they don't think that science exists. They don't think that mental health care is necessary. There are people who don't think substance abuse should be covered under treatment because a lot of the blame goes towards the addict. That's a whole stigma with drug and alcohol addiction. So with the Affordable Care Act, when that got implemented, they said, yo, health insurance companies, you have to cover it. You have to cover mental health care. So if the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, gets fully repealed by Donald Trump, insurance companies are no longer held by the law to provide you with mental health care. All right. So like right now, it's not even that great. A lot of you know, I was working in a drug and alcohol treatment center for a little over three years. That place was expensive. People who had the best of health insurance to go there, some of them were still paying thousands of dollars for their copay or deductible. All right. Think about that. So it's not even that great. So although they have to cover it, some people were still paying like $5,000 out of pocket. All right. But it was better than nothing. Okay. If this thing gets repealed, then health insurance companies don't even have to cover therapy. They don't have to cover psychology. They don't have to cover psychiatrists. They don't have to cover those things. And then you have to wonder, like, does this affect, you know, medications? Like me personally, I am on an antidepressant anti anxiety medication called Lexapro. Okay. Will it affect that? So you guys, we need to keep this stuff in mind. All right. So this next piece is from the American Psychiatric Association. So when the Affordable Care Act went into place, let's talk about, did it actually help people? What were the benefits of it? So a quote from this article says, researchers led by Kathleen C. Thomas, PhD, with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, examine the impact of mental health reform for people with mental illness. They use the health reform monitoring survey to exam health insurance, access to care, and employment for more than 1500 people with mental health conditions, pre and post implementation of the Affordable Care Act. They compared survey results from 2013 before the Affordable Care Act implementation. Health insurance marketplaces in 2013 and federal support for state Medicaid expansion in 2014 to a similar sample in 2016 after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. After implementation, people with mental health conditions were more likely to be insured, 5% uninsured versus 13%. They were also less likely to report the cost of mental health care as a reason for not getting needed care, 17% versus 21%. They were also more likely to report a having usual source of care, 82% versus 76%. These effects were experienced in states with Medicaid expansion and those without. The increased accesses to care in non-expansion states may have resulted from improved coverage of mental health services and services to help with daily living skills such as occupational and physical therapy under the Affordable Care Act, the authors suggest. The authors conclude that the findings highlight the important improvements in health insurance coverage and access to care achieved through Affordable Care Act reforms for people with mental health conditions. The gains in both non-expansion and expansion states underscores the importance of improvements in the quality of health insurance coverage such as mental health parity. So, what that's saying in a nutshell is when the Affordable Care Act went into place and health insurance companies were mandated by the law to cover mental health care as well as substance abuse treatment, more people were getting help and it even says in there that even though that there were some costs associated with it, it was less than what it was before. So, there were still more likely to get mental health care. All right? So, we need to care about this. So, how does Donald Trump, how does Donald Trump come into play with this? Again, aside from just trying to remove this, here's what really grinds my gears about this. All right? The United States has a major issue with mass shootings. All right? And listen to me. I am pro common sense gun laws. That's me. Okay? But anyways, anytime a mass shooting happens in the United States, which is happening all the freaking time, Donald Trump comes out and says, this is not a gun problem. This is a mental health problem. All right? So, not only, not only is he trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but he's saying he cares about mental health and how this stuff works, right? Because, you know, they need mental health care. We don't need to get rid of guns. We just need to get mental health care. Well, check this out. This is from an NPR article, not long after one of the mass shootings. Okay? It talks about the massive budget cuts that Donald Trump was trying to implement to decrease funding for mental health care. It says, but the budget blueprint also slashes spending for the substance abuse and mental health administration at SAMHSA by $665 million. Additionally, Bloomberg reported the National Institute of Mental Health would see a 30% reduction in funding, a half a billion dollar decrease in 2019. Do you guys understand? Are you guys following me here? He's saying, oh, it's not a gun problem. It's a mental health problem. But hey, let's take away over half a billion dollars in funding for mental health. And the National Institute of Mental Health, that is the government agency that does studies to try to help people like you and me and everybody else with our mental health conditions by putting money towards research to understand depression more, to understand anxiety more, to understand schizophrenia more, to understand bipolar disorder more, to understand borderline personality disorder more. They're trying to find more solutions for all of us to make our lives better. And he got Donald Trump over here trying to cut funding for it. So when it comes to the mass shootings in America, even if he says it's not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem, he is not adequately funding mental health programs to help people before they get to that point. Or even more importantly, the victims, the survivors, the family members of the people who involved in those shootings, those people have been traumatized and need mental health care as well. All right. So nobody likes talking about politics. But I really want you guys to think about this because politics are coming into the conversation. And I don't like even if you don't care about, you know, all these other little aspects of it like trade deals and, you know, tax reform and all those, we need to care about mental health care. If you are on my channel, if you're watching this video, there was a small part of you that cares about mental health. So you need to think about this, whether Donald Trump, you know, is getting reelected or any other candidates from either side of the party, you need to pay attention to what they are talking about when it comes to mental health care. And why does this matter? I've got a lot of flack lately for being an unlicensed, unqualified person on the platform talking about mental health. Well, guess what? If we keep putting funding towards mental health care with professionals, you don't need jack holes like me on YouTube, trying to put out free videos to help people, but you need to go and vote. All right. So in the 2020 election, make sure you're paying attention up until then and see who does and does not care about mental health and look at their track records too, because I will be doing videos about how Donald Trump on the campaign trail talked a lot about the opioid crisis and he hasn't done jack squat for it. All right. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this video. Let me know your thoughts down below. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up if you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge, thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You're all amazing. And if you would like to become a patron, help support the channel, get involved in our monthly Q and A and all that stuff. Click the top right there. All right. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time.