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Janet Firshein or Joe Sutherland at 301/652-1558

FOR RELEASE WITH A.M. PAPERS ON

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2004

NATIONAL REPORT CITES NEW YORK

FOR PROBLEMS AND PROGRESS IN HEALTH CARE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2004) – An assessment of health care in the 50 states, released here today, finds that New York is lagging in the field of mental health care. The report, which faults New York’s inability to fix systemic problems in its group homes for adults with mental illness, appears in the February 2004 issue of Governing magazine.

“It has been well documented that recovery from mental illness takes more than treatment,” said Michele Mariani, co-author of the special issue of Governing. “Stable and safe housing is crucial for individuals with mental illness to thrive in a community-based care setting. Unfortunately, New York’s system of adult homes has failed to provide that support, and efforts at widespread reform have foundered.”

New York once had the largest state hospital system in the country, with almost 100,000 people institutionalized during the 1950s; the numbers have dropped since, to just more than 6,000 at the end of 2000. About 12,500 people rely now on the state’s group homes, some of which have been plagued by a lack of support services for residents, problems with maintenance and housekeeping and fire and safety hazards.

As Governing’s report notes, repeated investigations and negative findings during the 1990s by the Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled went largely ignored by the state Department of Health. More recently, the state Office of Mental Health--which does not have oversight of the homes--released grants to improve resident services, but many of the same problems persist. One bright spot: Last year, $65 million was appropriated to build new housing for the mentally ill.

On a different front, the report had praise for New York, citing it as a “success story,” in its work to lower its uninsured population. As the study states, “despite having a low rate of employer coverage, New York’s expansive public programs, including one for childless adults have helped the state make headway in covering low-income non-elderly adults. In addition, a new program will make insurance more affordable for small businesses that employ low-income employees by shifting risk to the state for high-cost cases.”

Governing’s analysis of state-funded health care is part of the Government Performance Project, a six-year-old effort, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, to evaluate a wide range of state government management and policy functions. This year’s special report focuses on six critical health care problems facing states: long-term care, public health, mental health, prescription drugs, access to care for the uninsured, and care for children.

The Government Performance Project found and documented the inability of the 50 states’ health care system to deliver improvements in medicine fairly and consistently to many of their citizens. Health care in most states is not just inadequate, the study concluded--it’s deteriorating. “After exhaustive analysis and hundreds of interviews,” says Peter Harkness, Governing’s publisher and editor, “it became clear that there is a health care crisis in America. But it is in no way a medical crisis. It is a fiscal crisis.”

Governing is a policy and management magazine aimed at high-level state and local government officials. An online version of this report will be available at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/intro.htm as of January 29. Press releases for each of the 50 states can be found at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/press.htm.