The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646), introduced by Representative Tim Murphy (R-PA), is a sweeping bill that promises “reform,” but would actually return the nation’s state mental health systems to many of the failed policies of the past. Many provisions of the bill would be harmful to people with psychiatric diagnoses.

Among other harmful measures, the Murphy Bill would:

• Increase forced treatment by offering states financial incentives to implement Involuntary Outpatient Commitment laws, drastic measures that impinge upon people’s self-determination.
• Severely limit the scope of the federal protection and advocacy system by barring advocacy concerning any issues other than abuse and neglect
• Increase institutionalization by financially incentivizing states to implement re-institutionalization.
• Weaken HIPAA privacy protections by permitting the release of an adult’s health information to family members against the person’s will
• Undermine independent peer support by narrowly defining the service as an adjunct to clinical services and by eliminating funding for federal peer-run technical assistance (TA) centers and statewide networking grants

We urge you to stop this move to return to the failed policies of the past by voting against H.R. 2646!