The level of paranoia on the far right is off the scale. Today Cathie Adams, head of Texas Eagle Forum, sent out an e-mail blast attacking legislation that would create a workgroup to develop recommendations for integrating health and behavioral health services in Texas.
[Texas Eagle Forum] stopped a similar bill the last two sessions because it would have required physicians to screen / analyze your mental health each doctor visit. It is now more dangerous than ever with the federal government taking up nationalized / rationed health care. Texans must not surrender our mental and physical health to a socialist State that President Obama is striving toward.
Huh? House Bill 2196 is authored by Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, in the House and sponsored by Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville. These two conservative Republicans are somehow trying to undermine freedom by wanting to study how mental health services might be useful in treating patients who present with physical ailments? (Never mind, of course, Ms. Adams’ attacks on President Obama as a closet socialist. That’s standard fare these days on the far right.)
The official analysis for HB 2196 states:
Research indicates that people with serious mental illness are more likely than those without mental illness to have poor physical health and face premature death due to untreated and poorly managed medical conditions, such as cardiovascular, pulmonary, and infectious diseases.
In addition to the unacceptable human cost associated with untreated medical conditions and premature death, people with mental illness and other chronic conditions are the greatest users of health services and emergency room care. Evidence demonstrates that integrated health care improves access to and service outcomes for persons with or at-risk for mental illness. Establishing a workgroup in Texas focused on improving integrated health care is of primary importance.
Texas Freedom Network has no position on this bill — it’s not one of the issues we monitor. But we wonder how traditional conservatives take folks like Ms. Adams seriously anymore. Really.
