Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World

Tim Murphy's Fight for Mental Health Reform

• Tony Mantor

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Tim Murphy, former congressman and psychologist, shares his journey advocating for mental health reform through the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act and highlights the systemic failures in America's approach to serious mental illness.

• Serious mental illness requires different treatment approaches than general mental health concerns
• Current Medicaid restrictions only allow 15-day hospital stays with a 190-day lifetime limit
• HIPAA laws often prevent necessary communication between doctors and families of mentally ill patients
• Approximately 40% of prison inmates have serious mental illness, with jails becoming de facto psychiatric facilities
• SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) lacks accountability for billions in spending
• Schizophrenia alone costs America approximately $380 billion annually across healthcare, criminal justice, and social services
• Assisted Outpatient Treatment provides court-ordered care for those with severe mental illness who lack insight into their condition
• Mental health advocacy requires specific, actionable requests to legislators rather than general appeals
• Reform needs include lifting hospital bed restrictions, modifying HIPAA laws, and implementing stronger program accountability

Visit drtimmurphy.com to read articles with plans for advocacy and reform in mental health policy.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor, Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Their stories Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance and a better understanding for autism Around the World. Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Welcome to why Not Me? The World Humanity Over Handcuffs the Silent Crisis special event.

Speaker 1:

Today, we're joined by Tim Murphy, former American politician and psychologist, who represented Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives from 2003 to 2017. A lifelong advocate for mental health, Tim authored the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, a bill that passed the House with an overwhelming 422-2 vote in July 2016. With his wealth of expertise, we're truly honored to have him here to share his insights with us. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, sure, sure. You've served in both the state legislature and the House of Representatives, and throughout your career you've consistently supported mental health initiatives and efforts to help people. What inspired you to create the bills that you've worked on?

Speaker 2:

Great question. So as a psychologist, I worked on issues involving mental health for my whole life, even when I was on the staff at Children's Hospital Pittsburgh. And there I go to Harrisburg and our state capitol and work on even awareness among legislators and what I kept finding I think they wanted to do well, but they just didn't know what to do. Everybody likes the idea of mental health. Quite frankly, it can be kind of scary for a lot of folks and other folks aren't quite sure and there are some folks who just have a prejudice towards it. I'm not talking about stigma, I mean a prejudice towards it. Some people think it's a weakness until they start really digging into it and understanding there's a biological neurological basis for much of this.

Speaker 1:

As a state senator, how did your experience differ between the state senate and the house of representatives, especially in your goals of improving mental health?

Speaker 2:

What happened was. I ran for state senate in the 1990s. There I worked a number of health care reforms and among them, making sure that people could get access to care and insurance would pay for it in a general sense. In Congress it was a much deeper dive. There I was chairman of a subcommittee of oversight and investigation in the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Energy and Commerce has jurisdiction over mental illness and health in general.

Speaker 2:

But in that what happened was right after the terrible shooting in Sandhook Elementary School, the majority leader tasked me with the idea. He says we've got to do something about this. I know a lot of the hue and cry was well, let's ban guns or let's restrict guns. I always knew it's not what was in their hand, it was what's in their mind. That was the big issue in this. So we really had a year or two of just investigation. We had many, many witnesses come forth, dozens and dozens of parents, hundreds and hundreds of letters, millions of social media hits telling us the problems that were occurring, and it was on several levels. We did not have enough trained providers.

Speaker 1:

When you refer to trained providers, could you provide more detail about what specific qualifications, expertise or roles you have in mind?

Speaker 2:

No, I don't just mean counselors, I mean providers trained to deal with serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar and the more severe autism spectrum disorders. We had lots of people who were going to deal with some of the milder things, you know, the people with general angst or anxiety or mild depression, but the more serious ones we didn't have. The second thing is we had restrictions in the law. Medicaid only pays for two weeks at a time. 15 days stay, or a lifetime limit of what? 190 days in the hospital, that's a problem. Or they didn't want to have more than 16 beds in a hospital, that's a problem.

Speaker 2:

So it was these artificial limitations on serious mental illness. Particularly when you're dealing with schizophrenia and psychosis. 15 days is not enough. I mean, it takes that much time to get off of one medication and stabilize on another one. Your time is up before you know it. And this 190-day lifetime limit, I was thinking, boy, can you imagine if we did that with cancer and said I'm sorry, we're not going to give you any more days on this? There's other things with insurance companies more recently come to light, and that is that insurance companies have a tendency tendency when you start to get better, they stop payment. In other words as well. You don't really need this inpatient stay anymore because you're improving, so we're going to stop payment, which means before the person's even stabilized, they're out on the street.

Speaker 1:

Yes, insurance is certainly a challenge, and releasing them back onto the streets often does more harm than good. Were you able to identify or develop any alternative solutions that could better support these individuals?

Speaker 2:

Another aspect we discovered was that there's this concept of this practice called assisted outpatient treatment, different from assertive community treatment. The community treatment is one where, basically, services are provided, people can talk to the person with severe mental illness with the belief you can talk them into getting care, and that can work in a lot of cases. It does not work when someone is so compromised with their self-awareness, with a condition called anosognosia, they don't even know that they're not sick. They do not have that self-awareness. It's like the blind person who doesn't even know that they're blind. Those are people who resist treatment, who become very paranoid about treatment and, of course, in the throes of their psychotic or schizophrenic crisis, they can easily become paranoid because they think, well, you're part of the group that's plotting against them or trying to force them into treatment.

Speaker 1:

What do you do in that case? They need help. They don't want help. Yet if they don't get help, they never get better. Add to that, I think I've heard there are groups out there that support them not getting the help.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, with that, there are groups called the disability rights groups, which in concept make a lot of sense. They say they don't want to force anybody into treatment without their consent. I get that. And there was a time 50 years ago, 100 years ago, when many people were just put into these asylums. You know, you thought granny was the law of control, Uncle Bob was the law of control, the son. You send them to these asylums.

Speaker 2:

The asylums, by the way, were set up originally to keep people out of homeless and from prisons, to be a more humane place to put people. So they started off with a good concept but they became overpopulated, understaffed dumping grounds. So the disability rights people said, hey, you can't just be putting people there. I get it. What happened is they went too far, far, far, far too far and assumed everybody was the same. That in itself is such a far-fetched concept.

Speaker 2:

In medicine it's like we give everybody the same medicine. In medical you go see the doctor, take two aspirins, call me in the morning that's about where we are and some people you can talk into getting care, but some people you simply cannot and they can keep it together long enough, quite frankly, to see me and say I'm fine, I'm not going to kill myself, I'm not going to harm myself, I'm really good, Because they know that they conceptualize at least. If they're paranoid that something's wrong with you, then you're trying to talk them into this care and they don't want it. They've also probably had a lot of bad experiences, anyways, where the police have been called and they're afraid of those things. So what happens is the disability rights groups opposed a lot of these things where we were trying to have assisted outpatient treatment where the judge could order using what's basically the black robe effect.

Speaker 2:

So you know you need to get care. It's compassionate, but it sure is different from the police grabbing the person, handcuffing them, taking them to jail. They get in a fight with the prison guard. They're given another penalty. They get in a fight with somebody else. They get another penalty, Fight with somebody else. Before you know it, they're in solitary confinement. The worst possible thing you can do in a jail is someone there. Jail is not a place to treat schizophrenia. It never was, and eight out of 10 people in the jails get no treatment for that. So and what is about? 40% of people in prison have a serious mental illness, About 90% have something, and among the homeless.

Speaker 1:

The numbers are similar too. Given that there are numerous hospitals distributed across the country, are there enough facilities with adequate resources to effectively support those in need? How does the availability and the capacity in these hospitals influence the broader situation, particularly in terms of accessibility, quality of care and overall outcome?

Speaker 2:

So what has happened in America is, as we close these hospitals down from 550,000 in the 1950s to about 38,000 today, we provided nothing else for them in terms of having enough hospital beds, in terms of assisted outpatient treatment. There's people who oppose having a judge say no, you've got to go in the hospital, you've got to send your medication, and we still have a shortage. And we also have people who just do not engage families. Hipaa laws are extremely important to protect someone, but they have gone too far in the sense that doctors are tied up and not being able to communicate with families when they know what's going on. I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2:

Let's say a young woman, maybe in her early 20s, has a suicide threat. She's taken to the hospital Two in the morning. She's able to tell the doctors look, I'm not going to kill myself, really, I was just kidding about that. And the doctor's thinking well, we don't have a bed, we don't have a place to put, we don't have a psych ward. What are we going to do? We'll trust her to go on the street and say well, can we call someone to help you out? And if she says, don't call my parents because I don't get along with them, then that's it. They literally open the hospital doors and say go along, find a ride home, do something.

Speaker 2:

But what if call them they'll get your ride? Well, under HIPAA laws you can't do that. And also under HIPAA laws when you know someone is in the throes of deep psychosis and they're in crisis and they're fighting and they don't want help. If the doctors could call the family and say we need some background history on this. Can you give us more background and find out? Oh, this person's had multiple times before they're prescribed this medication. They don't want to take it, whatever else goes with that. It's important to be able to have that information.

Speaker 1:

Access to that kind of information could enhance a physician's ability to provide effective care. Are there any exceptions or methods to circumvent those restrictive guidelines, or are the medical professionals bound to adhere to them in all circumstances?

Speaker 2:

Well, that also is something that runs into a barrier, and a lot of doctors operate at this idea that, well, the confidentiality of sacrosanct I won't do that, you know what, but they don't always do that.

Speaker 2:

For example, if someone has Alzheimer's and is wandering the streets in the snow, it's two in the morning and grandma's out there in her bare feet. They don't say let's let her go, because she doesn't want to be picked up and she thinks she's on her way to second grade. They say let's call the family, let's take care of this. Well, quite frankly, that is a personal nanosugnose and someone else who we ought to put in the same category of many people with schizophrenia in a crisis to say we need to get this person help. It's not against their will, because they don't have a free, informed will. So where does all this go? When I was doing my investigations in 2014, 2015, we finally introduced a bill to do several things Make some tweaks to HIPAA laws, allow what we call compassionate communication, lift the 16-bed rule, expand the number of days someone could get care, fund assisted outpatient treatment and push states to do more of that.

Speaker 1:

Those sound like really great ideas. Was there anything else that you could add to it or that you did add to it?

Speaker 2:

We also wanted SAMHSA Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration to focus, to shift its focus to look at serious mental illness and mental illness and not just mental health. Quite frankly, it was pretty goofy before, tony. It was funding pictures and artwork and how to make a fruit smoothie and sing songs and have yoga classes. You know what All that's good for mental health. It's great if people eat right and sleep right and get involved in social activities. That's not a treatment for mental health. It's great if people eat right and sleep right and get involved in social activities. That's not a treatment for mental illness.

Speaker 2:

And again I go back to my cancer metaphor. Can you imagine if someone was checking into a major cancer clinic? They go into Sloan Kettering and they say, well, can I have chemotherapy and this and this and this? No, no, no, no. We're going to have yoga class in the morning, then we're going to teach you how to do finger painting and send you home. This is how absurd the system is and that's because people within SAMHSA quite frankly don't know what they're doing.

Speaker 2:

Samhsa's leadership has been weak, ineffective. Some years it has had a lawyer in charge. In the last couple of terms there's been a psychiatrist in charge, but in the last four years it has gone back to mental health and not to work a serious mental illness and so what we've ended up with is massive increases in homelessness, massive increases in incarceration, more homicides as you know, 10% of homicides are committed by someone with schizophrenia, even though schizophrenia is 1% of the population and 30% of mass murders are some with uncontrolled schizophrenia. Sometimes people will use this phrase and say well, a person with schizophrenia is no more likely to murder someone than some without, and that's totally false. That study was done comparing people with schizophrenia in treatment and people who don't have schizophrenia, and so among those groups, that's pretty similar. But when you have someone without treatment, without care, without wraparound services, without their medication, they can deteriorate and become violent, not only in the streets into their family, but also in jail or somewhere else.

Speaker 1:

Earlier you mentioned homelessness and how that overlapped with mental health and schizophrenia. Can you expand on that some?

Speaker 2:

What also is occurring in terms of the homeless area, in terms of the number of homeless that have increased dramatically in this country. We've had a system that has been strained far beyond its capacity. It's already beyond strains when you have several million immigrants come to this country and they have no place to go. So they've shoved people out of homeless shelters and put the immigrants in there, which puts a homeless on the street again. Last year, in 2024, hud just released information from a January assessment done January of 2024. But they didn't release until Christmas week. The Friday after Christmas in December of 2024, that homelessness actually grew about 18% in the United States.

Speaker 2:

Absurd that they waited 12 months to give that Cruel, that they waited 12 months to do that Cruel because Congress can't do anything without data. But then they say things like oh, look, someone's getting better, they've got some cities have reduced homelessness. And that's silly, because what happens is they reduce homelessness by helping those who can easily adapt to help, like some people just don't have an apartment or they don't have the money or they miss payments, all right, we'll get them into temporary housing and they'll move towards getting a job in permanent housing. But even if they reduce homelessness in those towns by 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 percent. Well, that's expected, because that's the people who are mentally much better and some of them pretty okay and with some assistance they can do better. But it doesn't address the chronically seriously mentally ill people with major problems, and so that gets ignored.

Speaker 1:

Do they have any assisted housing or anything that can help the homeless that might have some mental illness happening to get them off the streets?

Speaker 2:

There's something pretty cool called assisted housing, where it's not a huge apartment building, maybe there's only 30 units or something like that but there's a nurse at the front desk so as you're coming and going she just checks. Hey, bob, did you get your medication? Rebecca, did you take your pills today? Make sure you got an appointment today. That little checkup for some people who can function with that is great.

Speaker 2:

But the ones who have more serious problems, just checking up on them isn't enough. In fact, parents will tell you when they check up on them it may end up in a violent or heated altercation. So when I put my legislation in it, as I said, it was to make some of those changes, also to create the position of the Assistant Secretary of Mental Health. I wanted to elevate the issue and have someone in there who could do that. And also we wanted something called ISMIC, which is the Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Committee and Coordinated Committee, and that was to take all these federal agencies from HUD and HHS and everywhere else and say you have to coordinate your services, make sure we're evaluating on a government-wide level exactly what's going on.

Speaker 1:

That seems like it was a real good program. What came from that?

Speaker 2:

Here's where a major problem broke down. The reason we did that is because, as it turns out, when we asked the general accounting office so we wanted a survey of the federal programs they said we really don't know what we spend in this country. What Said it may be over $100 billion scattered over 130 programs. We don't know. We just wrote letters to departments. They threw a number at us, but we don't know if it really treats mental illness or if it does any good or what's going on. So that's a pretty amazing amount of money that no one bothers to track.

Speaker 2:

And we wanted SAMHSA to track it. They don't. They don't. There's absolutely no data to say that. In fact, their last report which I think was in March of 2024, they spent a few days talking about their colorful logo, how they came up with the logo, the symbolism, all those colors, but it didn't tell you a success stories of here's how we have worked innovative programs throughout the federal government got these programs to work together. It's not there. It's an abject failure. It's an embarrassment of the government and because of that, more people are dying, more people are homeless, more people are in prison. So try to put these factors in to get accountability there, try to put factors in to get assisted outpatient treatment and more treatment options, and it has just ended up rather disastrous for people with mental illness and their family.

Speaker 1:

That's sad to hear. So, in your opinion, what needs to change and how can we help these people that need the help.

Speaker 2:

I'm hoping that President Trump and RFK appoint someone who's a fighter, who will go in there and clean this mess up. This isn't any more time for goofball ideas, no more time for sing-alongs, pats on the back. This is people. We need to have someone in there who's like a psychiatrist, psychologist, who understands serious mental illness and understands these problems, wants to innovate and renovate programs there. We have to do things at work and we have to track.

Speaker 2:

No one is tracking the billions and billions of dollars spread out around the country, hundreds of billions of dollars that end up dealing with serious mental illness. And that's just not Medicare and Medicaid, it's Veterans Affairs, it's Department of Justice, it's all these things take place. As a matter of fact, I'm on the board of an organization called Schizophrenia and Psychosis Action Alliance, smpaa, and we did a study two years ago. Another one we have that's going to come out in another couple of months. We're tracking the expenses just of schizophrenia again, about 1% of the population and there we look at direct medical costs, direct treatment costs, criminal justice costs, family costs, unemployment costs, costs of not being in the workforce, disability costs, a whole host of things and, just for schizophrenia, our best estimate of the costs for the year 2024 is about $380 billion. $380 billion for one disease entity.

Speaker 1:

That is indeed a ton of money. I guess my next question is is it working and helping the ones that need the help?

Speaker 2:

Now that is pretty remarkable, that amount of money, and you think that would shake up the federal government to say where does it go? Is it doing any good? Well, the money is spent and governors and mayors will say, well, we're spending money, we have these programs, we have social workers out there and the question should be are people getting better? Are you tracking them? Do you track the individuals or you just tell us how much money you spend? And the answer is they tell you how much money they spent and they'll give you some general number. But every time there's a mass murder or some other crime committed by someone, you can pretty much bet if it's a person with mental illness. They're not on treatment. Case in point A couple of months ago, the event that took place in the New York subway, where the man who was in crisis ended up being restrained in a chokehold by a former Marine, daniel Penny.

Speaker 2:

So everybody got on Penny and said that he was terrible, cruel and racist, went to trial for manslaughter, he was acquitted. The sad thing is the victim in this case wasn't just a homeless street performer that the media tried to portray him as. He was a man with severe mental and schizophrenia and he wasn't taking his treatment. There was another case around the same time a man with severe mental and schizophrenia, and he wasn't taking his treatment. There was another case around the same time a man who went through New York with a knife and killed three people, stabbed them and they called him homeless. Well, he was homeless, but he was also a man with schizophrenia that wasn't in treatment. These are terribly sad stories that are taking place.

Speaker 2:

When I was in Congress, I tried to wake people up to understand and say many of these cases are treatable, preventable. But you got to have someone be the grown-up in the room to say these are folks who need to get them help. Don't just say, well, if they don't want help, we're going to leave it at that. We wouldn't do that with a child who doesn't want to go to school. Let's not let him go to school. Well, some parents might, but he's pretending he's sick. Let's let him stay home. But we have to understand these are lives worth saving and treat them. It's a massive burden on parents. Their hearts break every day across the nation. Some groups like Mad Moms of Arizona and there's one in Colorado too are fighting back.

Speaker 1:

I love it. Yes, I have them coming on a little later this month. You're right, they're great.

Speaker 2:

They're dynamic, wonderful women out there, get in there and kick butt, take no prisoners. But what they do is they teach the legislators. Here's what is really happening, and they're people of passion and information. And so the legislators thought, well, I was told that we could just talk them into care. No, they won't do that. So it's informing them and I hope any family member, any parent who's out there and thinks why aren't things changing? Well, my point is you got to talk to your US congressman, your state senator, your state representative, and tell them what's going on. Why? Because they don't understand. It's not a fault, they just don't know. Nobody can know everything. And people say, well, are they going to read my letter? Well, I'll tell you, they never read the letter you don't write, they never answer the call you don't make, and so it is important you let them know, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Reach out to them. What are some of the things you hope they do we have?

Speaker 2:

more things to do. I believe that I hope we get a strong assistant secretary of mental health Wish I could talk to someone about that, but I hope we do and I hope we also lift the IMD exclusion, the bed. I hope we lift the limit on number of days. I hope we change some of the HIPAA laws, allow doctors to get a more accurate history and help the person upon discharge. I hope that we can have accountability for the states of how much money they spend, where they spend it and is it effective, and publish that information, make it public so that states know and taxpayers know where it is going.

Speaker 2:

I want to know what's taking place in prison, what is done with people who are in prison and the crimes associated with or maybe unrelated to mental illness, what money is being spent, what treatment is being provided, what's the outcome? Same with the homeless population. So if all these things we don't have data on, the federal government and state governments are flying totally blind here. It is a sham, it is cruel and as a nation we shouldn't be putting up with this. We wouldn't put up with it anywhere else, but we sometimes think well, those are mentally ill. And a guy named Ron Powers wrote a book and it's called no One Cares About Crazy People, because that's the attitude amongst people in leadership positions Nobody cares. Well, we need to care, we need to say this must be done, we have to handle this. So that's why I'm continuing to fight on these things, that's why I'm going to continue to work on these things, that's why I hope we can make things happen, and that's the story.

Speaker 1:

So if you had the job where you was overseeing this whole thing that's going on, what would you do to make it smoother? Mental health has such a wide umbrella and a lot of these organizations for lack of a better term they just don't play well together. How can we get these organizations, which aren't coordinating well, to come together with our legislators under a wide enough umbrella, creating a unified force they can't ignore, rather than going it alone, so this whole effort flows more smoothly? Oh, that's a great question.

Speaker 2:

You know what the answer is Not everybody's under the same umbrella, multiple umbrellas. So, for example, nami, national Alliance for Mental Illness, at one time was really focused on serious mental illness. Now it's all over the place and when it's too broad and all over the place it's trying to please so many people that it can't please anybody at all. And it goes where the money is and it goes towards government and companies will give money towards mental illness. It's a great sounding organization by name. They have to have the accountability. Are you making a difference with serious mental illness? So NAMI has this place in terms of information and talking about stigma, but it's not pushing for innovation within and accountability within serious mental illness. Mental Health America great organization. They work on issues to make sure people with a serious mental illness can get care, but they're opposed to assisted outpatient treatment. I agree with them for those who can with a sort of community treatment and help them and guide them along. And those people are cooperative, awesome. That's a very important pool.

Speaker 2:

But not everybody is the same and so disability rights organizations say everybody's the same, same diagnosis, same treatment plan. We have to stand up and say no, that's not right. So SAMHSA needs leadership. The assistance sector needs to lead and say I get what you're concerned about, but what you're concerned about does not apply to everyone. Everything else that takes place when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And I tell people well, gee, if you have a problem in your house with I don't know pick anything, a broken light bulb, you don't send the road crew in to pave your driveway. You know that's not the same thing. You wouldn't do that. You have to work very refined on that.

Speaker 2:

And in the field of medicine we don't treat every diagnosis the same. And with mental illness we should not treat every diagnosis the same and the subcategories of diagnosis based upon the symptoms. A lot of what I do now, for example, I work with people with very serious post-traumatic stress disorder which can have very, very major consequences from moments, severe depression, severe anxiety, debilitating levels of that, psychotic behaviors, from massive stress. But you don't treat them all the same and what we can do is help a lot of people with PTSD. So two, it is with psychosis. We can help a lot of people, but it's going to take a leader within SAMHSA, that assistant secretary, coming in and say, no, we're not doing everybody the same way.

Speaker 2:

And two, we're going to stop the goofy programs. Absolutely stop them. There's no more room for grants for yoga classes or for art classes or anything like that. You want to do that? Go somewhere locally for that. Go to your local community center and get people some art classes it's valuable, but it's not mental illness treatment and say the money we have, the very limited money we have, we're going to spend on these things.

Speaker 2:

For example, I think this year's cyclic grants I think it's something like 15 to 20 million nationwide for AOT. You kidding me? A couple of counties could eat that up. In Pennsylvania, they passed a law in 2018 that said they gave counties wherewithal and permission to do AOT. One county is doing it so far and not very much Major counties like Philadelphia and Allegheny. They're not doing it. So it is this level that the assistant secretary has to hold states accountable Say what are you doing? And when states say we need more money, he says tell me what you're doing. We want to see your plan of action and give evidence that what you're doing makes sense. Give us some accountability numbers and don't just tell us it's improving by a percentile point. That's, in general, what has to happen, but it really is going to take someone. The way I word this, it has to be the tenacity of Teddy Roosevelt and the compassion of Mother Teresa to combine those two. Neither one of them would take no for an answer, neither one, and both of them improve the world.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think you're right there for sure. I spoke with a lady the other day from Allegheny County about making some changes and we went through the whole process. It was almost like some of the things you just mentioned.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I'm wondering should this start at the federal level or the local level? So many people aren't sure where to begin to push for this change.

Speaker 2:

Well, one has to assess what your area has If your county is not putting in, for example, aot. It is important that people become a very strong voice, appealing to their county government and accountability. And that is not just a private meeting. That means showing up to your county meetings and your local community meetings and city meetings and say here's a problem. Take care of this and I'll guarantee you at some point there'll be some crisis that occurs that these same parents can go and say this murder, this assault, this suicide took place because we don't have the program. The blood's in your hands Now. That's strong words. But having been in politics for a while, you need strong words. I would suggest that people look at the bad mom's model out in Arizona and find out the same thing. But definitely do that. And, yes, appeal on the federal government, because the federal government's going to pay with Medicare, medicaid and other grants.

Speaker 2:

So let your congressman know and understand. They may not know what you're talking about. Please don't look down on them and say well, we told them, they're not doing anything. You have to make a very specific ask so you can't say we want you to do more for mental health and the person will say thank you very much. I agree with you. Let's do more for mental health and one day that member of Congress Drop the 15-day one-time admission, drop the 190-day lifetime admission, change the HIPAA laws, put some money into AOT.

Speaker 2:

You got to punch and punch and punch in those ways, and all this with that massive accountability, just demand it. All the time you ask a member of Congress where does the money go? I think now that Elon Musk is in there with this whole Doge principle of making government accountability, that could be a real plus here. Don't cut the money out, elon, but please have it in such a way that people are that the government is asking what did you do with the money we gave you? What did you do with it? And if that area says, well, we don't know, well, then you don't get any more, well then we will have a problem. Then you've got aness. But it's going to need that kind of boldness for us to do. I mean, it's just like in the Pentagon. If we have generals that are not preparing our military for protecting our nation, it has to be exposed all the way down the line, and these are lives of people with mental illness, so we need to push it there too.

Speaker 1:

So, in closing, what's one key thing you think the listeners need to hear about, what they should be doing to make things better for all families?

Speaker 2:

Speak up, do not be silent. Silence doesn't work. It's not a means of getting action in there and in that, please let your legislators know what your concerns are, what your personal concerns are. Tell them your story, tell them what you want them to do. Some of the articles I published are at my website, which is drtimmurphycom. That's D-R-T-I-M-M-U-R-P-H-Ycom, drtimmurphycom. I suggest people go there. They can read some of these articles, because it does have some plans of action in there.

Speaker 2:

But don't give up. Please don't ever give up. I've been fighting this for years and I know it gets very, very frustrating, very frustrating. We we have a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of painful stories to swap with each other, but we can't give up, and sometimes when the only people we have is each other holding us up, that's what it is.

Speaker 2:

But there's a great saying it says you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have, and that's what we have here. We don't have any other choice except to be strong, to speak up, to be persistent, not to be mean, but to certainly be assertive in this and say we want to help Congress and state legislators understand this. But please, you got to do this. Lives are at stake, families are at stake. It's not just the law, but it really is. Quite frankly, even the Bible says you know that when you don't visit someone in prison, when you don't feed the hungry, when you walk by the homeless, that's sinful too. We've got to be working on all these things on every level and never, ever give up.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely. This has been great, great information, great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

Speaker 2:

Well, Tony, great. I hope we get to work together again.

Speaker 1:

Yes, me too. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to TonyMantorcom Contact then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask tell everyone everywhere about why Not Me, the World, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.