Major mental health reform bill clears House

The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, a bill that would significantly reform mental healthcare in the U.S., was passed by the House of Representatives Wednesday in a vote of 422-2. Now, lawmakers are calling on the Senate to pass a similar bill, according to Time.

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), a licensed child psychologist, introduced the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. The bill aims to address a nationwide shortage of psychiatric beds and child psychiatrists, and would create the federal position of secretary for mental health and substance abuse disorders, which would be filled by a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist. The person appointed to the role would take over the responsibilities of the administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, according to the report. 

"This historic vote closes a tragic chapter in our nation's treatment of serious mental illness and welcomes a new dawn of help and hope," Rep. Murphy said in a news release Wednesday, according to the report. "We are ending the era of stigma. Mental illness is no longer a joke, considered a moral defect and a reason to throw people in jail."

Rep. Murphy first introduced the bill in 2013 following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn. It has 207 bipartisan cosponsors and was unanimously approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee last month, according to the report.

Now, U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who coauthored a similar bipartisan bill called the Mental Health Reform Act, have called the Senate for a vote. The House bill "isn't perfect, but the fact that it passed overwhelmingly is proof that there's broad, bipartisan support for fixing our broken mental health system," the two senators said in a joint statement.

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