I have been reflecting about all of the cuts and everything that is happening in the substance abuse field right now.
Our clients often rely on a type of funding that is called a SUPR grant. We were made aware that we are not allowed to accept any clients that don't have insurance anymore. That is, there will be no more SUPR grants, and we cannot help the people who would have been served with the SUPR grants.
My job does a thing called “walk in evaluations” on Monday, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. These walk in evaluations are done because either they are court ordered by probation or parole, DCFS, or people’s employers; and sometimes we even see people coming in for themselves wanting help. The big issue that we have been running into recently in the past couple of weeks is that these clients are either being sent by any of the above organizations or because they genuinely do want to get sober and better themselves, but then we look them up in the system of insurance and see that they have no funding, so we have to turn them away and refer them to the DHS office, and then have them come back when they get funding.
It’s disheartening that because of all of the funding cuts and grant cuts happening in the world right now, people’s lives are being ruined—their LIVES! To me, that just isn't okay. How can these people want to get help but then we have to turn them away because of insurance or lack of insurance (because there are some insurances that we don't take)? They took away the SUPR grant and laid off people, so people who haven’t been laid off now have more work, yet no more pay.
Not being able to help all of the people that we used to be able to help is detrimental to them and potentially a risk for them as well because they could overdose or something else happen to them. Substance abuse is not talked about or cared about enough in the government, and I think that needs to change. In my honest opinion and in a perfect world, substance abuse treatment wouldn't be charged for. If they had insurance great, but if not we wouldn't turn them away. Addiction is a disease, not a choice. I myself have never struggled with addiction to any substance of any sort, but all of my older brothers (minus one, so 3 out of the 4) and my dad and mom had problems with addiction with some substances. More needs to be done for people who are struggling.
It seems to me that our society throws away several types of people. We throw away persons who have become addicted to substances. We throw away people who commit crimes and are convicted and sentenced. We throw away people with serious mental illness. We also mostly throw away people with serious or profound developmental or intellectual disabilities. To a lesser extent, we throw away poor persons with chronic health problems, and elderly persons with dementia.
I think this is why the value of equality is usually ranked second only to life on the priorities in ethical decision-making. We absolutely need to hold fast to the proposition that all people are equal in dignity and rights. Barbarity is the result if we do not (as the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reminds us, if we consult it and consider what the world had just experienced when it was written).
When our budgets are not balanced, we inflict debt and debt payments on future generations. I am therefore in favor of balanced budgets when we are not experiencing economic recessions or high unemployment. However, usually when politicians try to balance budgets or shrink deficits, they mainly focus on how they can cut spending. No doubt in large complex systems such as state budgets there must exist potential for some efficiency gains and there must be some waste. Even if waste and stupid loss of public money is only 1%, and the government is super efficient and vigilant, someone could still write about the millions (or billions) of dollars involved in that 1%. I often think about how we could raise more revenue, rather than cut our existing spending. I am skeptical that there are significant efficiency gains available to us in policy changes, and I suspect that we would be able to solve many of our social problems if middle class people were willing to hand over about 35% to 40% of their income to local/state/federal governments rather than 30% to 35%, and wealthy people ought to be putting about 45% of their income into public use rather than the 35% to 40% that they do now.
If we increased public revenue, I would prioritize five areas for funding: 1st) Higher education; 2nd) mental health and substance abuse treatment and prevention; 3rd) housing and affordable housing to end homelessness; 4th) K-12 education; and 5th) bicycle and public transit infrastructure, including real high-speed rail connections on trains that run on elevated tracks at 180 miles per hour zipping between our major cities.
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