Passing the buck literally means to shift the responsibility for something to someone else. Or to leave a difficult problem for someone else to deal with.
In the 16th century families were responsible for taking care of their own. In the 18th century Dorethea Dix proposed the Ten Million Acre Bill Act after the inhumane treatment of mentally ill patients was discovered. Under President John F. Kennedy legislation was passed that provided for $329 million dollars to build mental health care centers to provide service to people who had formerly been in institutions. Then the Reagan Administration in 1982 enacted the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act to reduce federal funding to block grants administered by the various States.
It’s okay, because there’s still help out there for the mentally ill right? Yet, the Bureau of Primary Care’s 1998 to 2003 Uniform Data System reported an increase of patients with mental health/substance abuse disorders in community health centers increased from 210,000 to 800,000. 90% of those patients have a family income level below the federal poverty level. With 2/3 of which are from minority groups and 40% of those are uninsured (BPHS 2005).
In 2018 58.2% of Black and African American young adults ages 18-25 and 50.1% of adults aged 26-49, with serious mental illness did NOT receive treatment (as reported by the CDC 2019). In 2020, more than 255,000 full-time staff were responsible for 29 million patients and nationwide health centers have tripled the number of patients served since 2000 (BPHC 2021).
Down through history there has been a systematic passing of the buck as far as the care of the mentally ill is concerned. First it was the responsibility of the family then under the Kennedy Administration this care transferred to federally funded programs to be distributed on the State level. However, these same programs have taken a hit when funding is cut. Funds may go down but the number of those needing care continues to rise.
How does this transfer into the means for mental health centers to provide adequate care in the African American community? Will this eventually lead to a lack of a unified structure of insurance coverage for those without insurance? Will those who need care falter because of lack of service instigation? Will mentally ill patients with serious mental illness be forced to survive in homeless shelters, on the streets, in jail or in prison (Grobe 2003)? Or are these already facts of life due to lack of funding, staff personal, and programs in are of the mentally ill?
Who really is my brother’s keeper?
Great content! Keep up the good work!