Latest / CareTalk: Healthcare. Unfiltered. / Finding Courage Through Mental Health Struggles w/ Former Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy
Transcript
- 0:00Former Congressman Patrick J.
- 0:01Kennedy is out with Profiles in Mental Health Courage, a new book that portrays the stories of resilient Americans living with mental health challenges and addictions.
- 0:10What can we learn from these courageous people?
- 0:12And what are the implications for mental health policy?
- 0:23This episode of Care Talk is brought to you by Matrix Medical Network.
- 0:27Matrix Medical Network pioneered the first national in -home clinical network nearly 25 years ago, and today is an independent provider of in -home health assessments serving people across the nation.
- 0:39The company's national network of nearly 3,000 clinicians delivers comprehensive personalized care for Medicare Advantage, managed Medicaid, and commercial patients across all 50 states.
- 0:50Care visits include diagnostic testing, risk identification, medication management, and tailored lifestyle improvement plans.
- 0:58Welcome to Care Talk, America's home for incisive debate about healthcare business and policy.
- 1:03I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group.
- 1:05And I'm John Driscoll, senior advisor at Walgreens.
- 1:08Today's guest is the honorable Patrick J.
- 1:10Kennedy making his third appearance on Care Talk.
- 1:13We're here to discuss his new book, Profiles in Mental Health Courage, and of course we'll get his take on President Biden's momentous announcement.
- 1:21Meanwhile, join the fast growing Care Talk community on LinkedIn, where you can dig deep into healthcare business and policy topics, access Care Talk content, and interact with the hosts and our guests.
- 1:31And please be sure to leave us a rating on Apple or Spotify while you're at it.
- 1:35We love those ratings.
- 1:37So Patrick, what is your take on the president's momentous decision to step aside and the enormous momentum around Vice President Harris?
- 1:50Well, first, when I first got sober and my stepmother, Vicki, hosted an engagement party for me and Amy and all of her family down in Washington and my dad's old house.
- 2:05Then vice president came, Biden came over and he said to me, I know your dad can't be here, so I'm here.
- 2:14And I also want you to know how difficult I know it is to recover.
- 2:19and anything you need, I'm here for you.
- 2:25shortly thereafter, as you know, my sister, Cara died and Joe Biden was there to give the eulogy.
- 2:31So I could just tell you, personally speaking, I love Joe Biden.
- 2:36Aside from all the amazing years of public service, I absolutely am so grateful for him as a human being.
- 2:43And of course, as a mental health voter, and I want to make that clear, part of my whole mission is to create a special interest movement much like we have every other special interest group in Washington, but to do it for mental health and addiction in much the same way we do a chamber of commerce or a AFL -CIO.
- 3:03We just have not learned the lessons of other sophisticated advocacy groups.
- 3:09if I were to evaluate Biden, I'd say he's the best president we've ever had on mental health and addiction.
- 3:14He's put more money in.
- 3:16He started the certified community behavioral health centers.
- 3:18And right now of interest to your listeners, he's about to release the most powerful rule in the 15 years since we passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act to enforce that act.
- 3:32so, you know, obviously I think we also want to have good mental health going forward for the next four years.
- 3:39So I'm happy that he made the decision he did because our mental health as a nation wouldn't fare very under President Trump presidency.
- 3:50And I'm not just talking about the fact I served on the Trump Opioid Commission.
- 3:56Governor Christie, I live in New Jersey, and I was a good friend and had me on.
- 4:00But Trump never showed up to any one of those commission meetings, not one, even though at that point, we were still spiking in terms of overdoses.
- 4:09And he had Roy Cooper, he had Governor Baker, Governor Cooper, he had all of these.
- 4:15Governor Christie didn't bother to show up once.
- 4:20furthermore, he put no money, Mulvaney put no money into solving this problem.
- 4:28even though like all of us, he has a personal experience losing his brother to alcoholism.
- 4:33And by the way, there's no differences, alcoholism, opioid stimulants, you know, these are diseases that are multifaceted, all of which share the same necessary solutions.
- 4:43But it says a lot that it's not just the fact that he hasn't put any effort behind policy.
- 4:50He also hasn't, he creates an environment that's mentally toxic to so many people because of the, you know, just the tenor of the politics when he's kind of spouting off and going after groups and, you know, marginalizing people and attacking people with disabilities and attacking.
- 5:11It's just not good for the mental health of our country.
- 5:14for a lot of reasons, I'm actually take a position on this for for no show, no money for mental health Trump.
- 5:22Yeah.
- 5:22Yeah.
- 5:23I mean, obviously, I think if it should be Kamala Harris, we'll have time now to start to put together the kind of campaign that thankfully, I think will give him a clear, competitive you know, opposition, credible opposition in November, and he can no longer count his chickens before their hatch because they aren't.
- 5:50And I don't believe the American people at the end of the day are going to want to co-sign all of that that he's brought to the table.
- 5:58But that doesn't mean we don't have our work cut out for us.
- 6:01And as a mental health advocate, I'm looking forward.
- 6:05And the reason we put in the Kennedy Forum a comprehensive policy agenda together, so there wasn't And we now have a curated by every committee in Congress, just like any other special interest group would.
- 6:18And we're ready to download it for her team so that she can pick up the ball.
- 6:23People care about this issue, but as you know, John, I found it difficult when they do care about it to make sure that they know what their roadmap is.
- 6:32If they care about this issue, we now have the roadmap at the Kennedy Court.
- 6:36I want to get back to the importance of that rule, but You know, having established cognitive capability as a standard for qualification for the presidency with a new race in hand, do you think it's fair to hold Trump to a standard of cognitive competence?
- 6:54Well, you you know, the Goldwater rule is that you don't diagnose people from afar.
- 7:03So I'm not going to do that.
- 7:05I'll let professionals, you know, say what they will.
- 7:08I will say that.
- 7:10I don't think he was cognitive in President Biden.
- 7:12just think that he, you know, he's this age caught up to him.
- 7:17And I would go, I have a very elderly constituency in Rhode Island, and I would go to senior centers, where there are people a good deal younger than Joe Biden, you know, sitting in their chairs doing bingo in the afternoon.
- 7:32I mean, God bless Joe Biden, he's been able to keep up an incredible pace.
- 7:37And, know, he'll go down in history as one of the most effective presidents we've ever had.
- 7:40So, but, know, at the end of the day, you run up against, as they say, father time and he did, and he was good enough to recognize it and pass the baton and certainly Kamal is, I think as a former prosecutor, as someone who will just wipe the floor with Donald Trump in a debate.
- 8:00think if he's smart, he'll avoid it.
- 8:02I hope not, cause I want to see this happen, but.
- 8:06Yeah, we're going to be in good shape, I think, in November.
- 8:09We're going to have to mobilize our base.
- 8:10I think Kamala does a good job at that.
- 8:13will ask you to put the question on ice until Nikki Haley shows up for our show.
- 8:17And we'll ask her about that.
- 8:20just think it's the reasonable standard for one candidate is a reasonable standard for the other.
- 8:24But Patrick, maybe you could talk.
- 8:26I want to reverse the tape a little bit.
- 8:28I don't think people understand how weakly we've enforced parity.
- 8:33and how consequential the new rule is.
- 8:36Can you maybe describe a little bit about how big an opportunity it is and how important that, what that rule really means for people wanting equal access to mental health treatment and care?
- 8:48So I have worked with the insurance companies for years and basically tried to say much in the same way that John McCain and know, Orrin Hatch would tell my dad he didn't understand.
- 9:01My dad would tell them They don't understand.
- 9:03But at the end of the day, they would come up with something that both of them could sign off on and pass for the good of the country.
- 9:09I tried to say to them, you know, we're into a new world, you know.
- 9:13If you thought Me Too was a wake -up call or Black Lives Matter is a wake -up call, guess what?
- 9:20When you keep going in the way that we have historically where we marginalize mental health and addiction treatment and we pay for it in a substandard way, and we force people to jump through all kinds of hoops that we would never force them to do if they had another illness.
- 9:35You gotta fix it.
- 9:37And at the end of the day, for the benefit of reducing costs, we know that mental health is the secret sauce.
- 9:45We've squeezed everything we can out of the rest of healthcare, but mental health is a chance for us to really reduce costs.
- 9:51Obviously, we're gonna have to reorganize the way we set up the financial incentives so that insurance companies are motivated just to do it within a year's time, because of course the big ROI are years down the road.
- 10:05So we have to come up.
- 10:06But I've always tried to get them to say, what's the new mousetrap?
- 10:11I mean, they can operate most effectively, know what the rules are.
- 10:15We just haven't been very good at putting the rules in place.
- 10:18I've told them they need to step up.
- 10:20They can't just be opposed to parity, which unfortunately, I think has been a reactive approach they've always had.
- 10:25But in this case, then they're fighting it.
- 10:27And John, I honestly think that there may be litigation on their part when the rule comes out from everything I'm hearing.
- 10:35The first time I was invited down to K Street since I got a left office was when this proposed rule was put forward and the insurance companies through their lobbyists invited me down and they said, what can we do?
- 10:48What can we do?
- 10:49How can you help us?
- 10:50And I'm like, you know, it's the 11th hour and now you're calling?
- 10:54I mean, It's just remarkable to me that we haven't done a better job preparing for this moment.
- 11:01what do I want as a consumer?
- 11:02I want insurance companies to pay for recovery housing.
- 11:06I know the people that I'm in recovery with benefit from long -term six months support of living.
- 11:12That's not paid for today.
- 11:13I'd like to see insurance companies pay for it.
- 11:16Clubhouse models for people, schizophrenia, bipolar, that is one of the strongest evidence -based outcomes.
- 11:22Do insurance companies pay for it?
- 11:24No.
- 11:24If the insurance company said to me, Patrick, we don't have enough therapists to meet your in -network adequacy requirements, which of course is a function of the fact we've never paid for these services, I'd say let's expand the availability of providers by including recovery housing supports, including social supports through clubhouses.
- 11:47And then you wouldn't get in as much of a problem when it comes to not having sufficient end network.
- 11:52And then I would say, Let's define what we want mental health to serve.
- 11:56I'd say we want people who are severely mentally ill to be on the top of the list and we want to make sure those that are in jeopardy of falling into that bucket are on the top of the list.
- 12:06But if all of us can benefit from mental health, we have to come up with a new solution to provide for that whole system.
- 12:13But for the insurance population, let's hold them accountable for this.
- 12:19If I said to them, they'd be like, hell yeah, let's do that.
- 12:22But guess what?
- 12:23They've never engaged with the consumers except for now and now it's, you know, they're crying and the sky is falling, the sky is falling.
- 12:32All this rule does is it says, guess what?
- 12:36Just treat mental illness and addiction the same.
- 12:38Do not have longer waiting lists.
- 12:40Do not have a higher financial thresholds.
- 12:44You know, make sure you have more, no more onerous medical management practices.
- 12:49I mean, it's pretty basic stuff.
- 12:52anyway, I think John, that this rule is going to be the leverage we need as consumers to get payers to the table and listen to us.
- 13:01And I want them to know, like Orrin Hatch knew when he worked with my dad, my dad knew when he worked with John McCain, we're not going to get all we need and they're not going to get all they want.
- 13:13But at the end of the day, we're going to be better off if we figure out a way to do this together.
- 13:18So Patrick, the new book is Profiles in Mental Health Courage.
- 13:21My first thought was great title.
- 13:23My second thought was you'd probably be pretty pissed if someone else took that title.
- 13:26But in any case, what inspired you to write the book and what do you hope readers will take away from it?
- 13:32Well, I looked into John F.
- 13:34Kennedy's original eight senators and guess what?
- 13:38Over half of them have documented mental illness in their families.
- 13:42John Quincy Adams lost his eldest son, George Quincy Adams, from suicide.
- 13:50John Quincy Adams' two brothers in their 30s died of alcoholism.
- 13:57John Quincy Adams, a father suffered from great depression.
- 14:02Lucius Lamar, person he featured, John F.
- 14:05Kennedy featured, saw his father at eight years old.
- 14:07looked out, his father walked out in front of the house and took a pistol to his head and shot himself.
- 14:13You had Sam Houston, first president of Texas, then a US Senator, was known as the big drunk.
- 14:20Daniel Webster, my dad's hero.
- 14:22died of cirrhosis of the liver.
- 14:24So I don't think my uncle, knowing how much he cared about mental illness and addiction, because of course he was the president who signed the Community Mental Health Act, would so much mind me stealing his great title.
- 14:37But I think he'd be especially happy that I made the correlation between, yes, all of those senators were known for these other things, but part of the problem we've had in this country is that they weren't known for all the other things that they were courageous.
- 14:52or had to face in their own lives, which we're able to modify in terms of public's understanding of now that we have this chance through profiles and mental health courage to write about it.
- 15:03Patrick, do think that people post COVID, now that people understand how mental health isn't a separate silo, it's integrated into everything, every other part of healthcare and frankly is unaddressed in every sector, for every income level, in every type of illness.
- 15:23Do you think we've really that the public's understanding has really changed about the mental health being integrated into physical health or do we still have a lot of work to do there?
- 15:36Well, we have a ton of work to do there because frankly, most people don't avail themselves of mental health and addiction services till their stage four illnesses.
- 15:45And that's principally because one stigma still alive and well and two, none of want to walk that kind of those egg shells to tell the person we love that they're in trouble until it becomes really obvious when in fact what we need to do is get in there early as if it were cancer, cardiovascular disease and say, listen, this is going to be a lot easier for you to deal with if you start dealing with it now.
- 16:11We haven't had those conversations with our loved ones.
- 16:14And in this book, Profiles of Mental Health Courage, I not only tell the stories of these 12 courageous people who tell everything.
- 16:22But they had me talk to their parents, their brothers and sisters, their kids, their therapists, their friends and colleagues at work.
- 16:30They really had me talk to people frankly that they don't talk to anymore because their illness has so isolated them.
- 16:35This book is different in that it includes all the people around the person, including as you know, John, my cousin, Mark McMurray, his son, Harry died of suicide at 23.
- 16:48The first time Mark really talked about his son's suicide was when I interviewed him seven years after Harry had died about this.
- 16:56And Mark was, you know, very full of trepidation.
- 16:58Should I do it?
- 17:00Once he got in, he was, it was cathartic for him, which only proves the point that we need to open up and talk about these things.
- 17:07Then he had me talk to Harry's brother, his other son, Belton, and Belton said things that Mark had never heard.
- 17:15Then Mark had me talk Harry's roommate at college.
- 17:18Harry's roommate in college told both Belton and Mark things that they had never heard of before.
- 17:24So my point is if we had had a better chance for everyone to share, there may have been a better chance for them to have intervened earlier and more aggressively with Harry than was the case because they felt like they couldn't talk about that personal business that, you know, I don't want to violate his privacy.
- 17:45Well, and we've got a quiet epidemic that's beginning louder and louder every day of suicide, not just in the military, but across society, particularly of when you start throwing self -harm and just deep challenge the self -image for young people.
- 17:59mean, it's a, that's a, that's that's a, it shakes me to hear that, Patrick, but I think it's a critical conversation to your point about the only way we're going to intervene early is to understand early.
- 18:14you know it is remarkable these illnesses that we wait until they become you know real really sick people and you know the african proverb if you want to save someone from drowning tried making sure they don't fall in the first place we just don't go up straight and we have to going back to my original point shot come up with a new financial model you know all these european countries that have national health systems do so much in terms of social supports for these illnesses, early intervention for these services.
- 18:45Why?
- 18:46Because it saves them macro costs, which by the way, they bear because they come from these big, you know, centralized health systems.
- 18:54We have to figure out a way to incentivize those long -term ROI and we need partners to be able to do that.
- 19:02Ultimately, this will only work if the financial incentives align with screening earlier.
- 19:08But today, payers are like, geez, do I really want to know that they need help?
- 19:12You know, because they might not be with me in a year from now.
- 19:16That's a kind of defeatist system.
- 19:18We have to fix the system if we're going to help people.
- 19:21So we talked about the role of government and advocates and even insurance companies and individuals.
- 19:26What kind of a role can businesses, employers play, including those in the health care sector, but more broadly?
- 19:32Can they play a more supportive role?
- 19:35Well, They're the true fiduciaries.
- 19:39So the thing we lose sight of is the insurance company is not the true fiduciary because if you think about it, they don't pick up the costs of lack of productivity.
- 19:51They don't pick up the cost of workers comp.
- 19:54They don't pick up the cost of absenteeism.
- 19:57If you start adding those costs and then add the number workers that are churning in and out in any given year in a major company, some of which is driven by mental health and the lack of safe culture where people feel accepted and embraced in a supportive environment of work for recovery, you you start adding huge costs.
- 20:22we as insurance companies, they don't because they don't bear those other costs.
- 20:27When it comes to them, they're thinking, we want to keep a capitated span on mental health and addiction we don't want to go that extra mile because it's gonna cut into our profits however if they had all these other costs in mind they'd say to the employer or the employer should be saying to them listen we'll pay more on the insurance side because we know it's gonna save us dollars on the human resources side that's out Again, another point where this all comes down to finances.
- 21:01And these employers have to be the ones that step up because the provider community is, I think, limited in what they can do.
- 21:11The consumers, because of the nature of stigma, are limited in what they're able to do.
- 21:16The insurers, by their nature, are going to kind of fight anything that puts them at higher risk for paying for all this stuff.
- 21:23The employers have to step have to step up.
- 21:27They have every financial reason to step up.
- 21:30And as employers, they want to have a workplace where their employees can come thrive too well and stay a long time as opposed to coming in and out of employment.
- 21:41Patrick, do you see other nations that have better funded systems drive better outcomes?
- 21:48Because clearly there's more access in some of these other OECD countries.
- 21:53I don't know whether you have looked at measuring their results in terms of mental health optimization versus mental health challenges.
- 22:05Yeah.
- 22:05So in other parts of the world, Germany, England, they have these models where they cover the wraparound services.
- 22:16But you see it back to the other point, John, is they're able to realize the savings in their criminal justice spend.
- 22:25They're able to realize their savings in their first responders spend.
- 22:30We don't because we have these siloed budgets.
- 22:33That's the difference.
- 22:34These more, if you will, centralized systems in Europe and the like have clearly on their ledger all the savings that come from investing in these other places.
- 22:49What we really need as a mental health addiction who can say HUD, Housing and Urban Development, we need this much support of.
- 22:58Human Services, we need you to do this.
- 23:01Healthcare, CMS, we need you to do this.
- 23:03Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Corrections, we need you to do that.
- 23:08In other words, if we're not coordinating all those systems, the number of people who are living on our streets today, actively in psychosis, inactive addiction.
- 23:17are costing us a fortune, let alone the suffering that they all have to endure and their families endure.
- 23:23And we could get so much for the dollars that we spend constantly sending ERs, ambulances out to try to save them.
- 23:32When you look at the imposition this puts on businesses, you know, go to San Francisco, try to get to Salesforce, you have to step over 15 bodies before, that's not good for business.
- 23:43So when are business people gonna come up and say, Frankly, it's in our self -interest as business.
- 23:47We want to be ahead of the curve because more and more people are suffering.
- 23:51Certainly, this next generation that is going to be our future employees, we need to create a very nice work environment where they know they're accepted because we want them to be good workers.
- 24:01I mean, there's every reason for businesses to jump all in on this.
- 24:05And government has to come up with a new model themselves.
- 24:08And they could look to these other countries.
- 24:11But even if they did, unless we fix financial models, it won't work if we try to jam the square peg and the round hole in a system that's already broken.
- 24:22It won't work unless you change the fundamentals of the system.
- 24:26So there's so much demand for mental health care, just given the number of people that need it.
- 24:31As you mentioned, number of providers is not necessarily going to go up.
- 24:34One way is to look at the wraparound services.
- 24:36What role can technology play?
- 24:39Is there a way to be a force multiplier there to meet some of the need?
- 24:45enormous ability for us to really risk stratify the population.
- 24:51So what you really want, as I said before, is to take those resources you currently have, make sure they're focused in the ways that they can do the most good.
- 25:00Certainly technology, remote monitoring is a whole new field.
- 25:04It used to be that, you you'd go in once a month, once a week to get your therapy.
- 25:10You wouldn't know what the person was going through for the rest of you know, weak, we can now monitor people like, you know, people do with their patch for their A1C, they're, you know, they can manage their diabetes, their cardiovascular disease, all this other stuff.
- 25:27Why shouldn't we be able as consumers better manage our mental health and addiction?
- 25:31Now we can do it through voice recognition.
- 25:34know, voice is a biomarker now for a lot of, you know, indications that someone might be at risk for psychosis.
- 25:42Obviously, facial expressions you know if you're doing virtual care we should be able to have you know ability to tell whether people are telling the truth frankly we know with our intelligence system we figured out that technology to people want to do it as a therapist of someone in therapy i don't know but let's give them that choice if i'd coming out of treatment the very first time was told this in patrick you're going to give up these civil liberties but you're gonna increase your chances of recovery by 80%.
- 26:16I'd be like, let me have that, right?
- 26:21Doctors have 95 % sobriety rates after five years.
- 26:25Why?
- 26:26Because there's something called contingency management.
- 26:29Their jobs depend on it, their livelihoods.
- 26:32So we need to put incentives in place, including financial incentives.
- 26:38Now I know that's pay for, patience, know, there's, you know, to kick back stuff.
- 26:44But we know in a lot of addictions, if you can give people rewards, it works better.
- 26:49That's what the evidence says.
- 26:50It's not me trying to, you know, argue for some company to be able to pay.
- 26:55We just got to figure out, as I said, the system that works and pay for that system.
- 27:00And so, you know, I think there's a lot of progress that we can make.
- 27:04And certainly if we get better organized, we'll be able to do it.
- 27:08John, last question.
- 27:09Yeah, yeah, Dave, David, I think I think this is a question that we should we should have.
- 27:14We should nominate an endorsed care talk candidate for mental health star.
- 27:18And I think we know who it would be.
- 27:20Patrick, if nominated, will you serve 100 percent?
- 27:24This is such a historic time.
- 27:26We really can rewrite the rules of the system because frankly, the system is so anemic right now.
- 27:31We wouldn't have to displace a lot of entrenched interests.
- 27:35That should be attractive to philanthropists out there and major stakeholders.
- 27:39because they're not gonna run up against the same obstacles.
- 27:42We have not re -entrenched our silos yet, but if we fail to move quickly, all those silos from psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, inpatient, outpatient, pharma payers, those barriers are gonna be erected and people are gonna get their turf and then we're gonna be stuck with this current model and unfortunately patients are not gonna do as well as the results.
- 28:09I'm encouraging your listeners, someone out there to join in now because they could make a difference.
- 28:15Really, this is 100 % an opportunity to make a difference.
- 28:20So I encourage people to join up.
- 28:22Put another plug in for the Kennedy Forum.
- 28:25So JFK did this as community mental health.
- 28:27We have our alignment for progress.
- 28:29We have 90 -90 -90 by 2033.
- 28:32It's been adopted by all the advocacy groups.
- 28:3490 % of Americans should be screened.
- 28:3690 % should be given evidence -based interventions, 90 % should have supportive recovery.
- 28:42That's what the HIV, I didn't come up with this.
- 28:44I just took it from HIV AIDS.
- 28:46We in our community don't think big enough.
- 28:49We have to think bigger because our country's health as a future depends on it.
- 28:55Well, that's it for yet another episode of Care Talk.
- 28:57Our guest today has been Patrick J.
- 28:59Kennedy.
- 28:59He is author most recently of Profiles in Mental Health Courage, Mental Health Advocate and candidate for Czar of Mental Health for Care Talk.
- 29:08I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group.
- 29:11And I'm John Driscoll, senior advisor at Walgreens.
- 29:13If you like what you heard or you didn't, please subscribe on your favorite service.
- 29:16And thank you so much, Patrick.
- 29:18Thank you, John and David.
- 29:20It's been great to be with you guys.