Art Levine’s book, Mental Health, Inc.: How Corruption, Lax Oversight and Failed Reforms Endanger Our Most Vulnerable Citizens, makes clear the need to reform a healthcare system in which thousands of people with mental illness are overprescribed medicines that sometimes result in needless fatalities. With a focus on antipsychotic drugs, Levine spells out the sinister implications involved with the relationship between government institutions and mammoth drug companies — while simultaneously calling for additional government interference in the market.
Levine spends the book’s introduction railing against Republicans who want to repeal Obamacare, saying, “The [Trump] administration and Republican leaders have a vested interest in failure: they have done whatever they could to hasten Obamacare’s demise and limit the scope of Medicaid.” Yet, the third chapter is titled, “The Secret History of the VA’s Tragedies in Tomah and Phoenix,” and describes the horrible abuses that Veterans Affairs have shrouded in secrecy while covering up patient deaths in order to defend their employees.
On the crony relationship between drug companies and the federal government, Levine explains, “As secret corporate records disclosed in litigation showed, the VA’s pain management team became a propaganda arm for the drug industry fueled in part by a $200,00 grant from Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin.” But Levine ignores the irony in making the argument that more people should be covered by government healthcare and then proceeds to write 300 pages citing example after example of no-good interest groups working in tandem with the government to sell a dangerous product.
The author’s solution is simple: Provide more oversight and regulation in one of the most regulated sectors of the economy. All the while, Levine fails to address the perverse incentives created when companies reap the benefits from government influence in the distribution of prescription drugs.
Levine’s examples of abuse continue in kind. Drugs, he writes, are overprescribed in jails, residential treatment centers, and nursing homes. And, in explaining the legal trouble with Los Angeles County and their prisons, Levine notes the staggering number of federal employees charged with spreading this drug problem. “Since December 2013, federal prosecutors have hit the sheriff’s department with nearly two dozen federal criminal indictments,” Levine writes. “Most of the twenty-one convicted guards and administrators … have been sentenced to prison.” Here again the author calls for more oversight — even though people are already being held accountable for their actions. It simply is not a solution to call for additional government regulations when the existing ones are busy doing the opposite of what they should be: deterring overprescription.
Out of the blue, the author brings up guns — a topic that has nothing to do with the book. Even so, Levine’s stance on the issue becomes clear when he writes on what he sees as a quandary with only a couple of solutions. “With gun control dead for the foreseeable future, can the nation really have only two choices: either force meds on the untreated, chronically mentally ill who seem dangerous, or do nothing while some crazed young men plan mass slaughter?”
Yet, the book discusses no relationship between gun control and mental health, or even solutions to solve that issue. Instead, the author blames a continued lack of governmental steps toward gun control as another reason why gun violence remains an issue in our society. Even though evidence has shown that gun control probably would not have thwarted many of the recent mass shootings, Levine uses concerns about gun safety as a point supporting government influence in the lives of citizens.
It seems that, from Levine’s perspective, the government has too much power when it comes to prescribing opioids and other dangerous antipsychotic drugs. Yet, in regulating firearms, they haven’t gone far enough!
Amid the praise of Obamacare and the “Republicans want to take away your health insurance” rhetoric leftists rely on, the truth on mental healthcare rears its head only a few pages into the book: Levine concedes that, in many cases, insurance doesn’t even matter. “Even if you retain your mental health coverage under Trump, most people can’t afford it: nearly half of all psychiatrists don’t take private insurance or Medicare.” There are successful ways that veterans have dealt with PTSD without using drugs, and, to his credit, the author points to them. But he fails to explain why the repeal of Obamacare is a central issue when many of these providers do not even accept insurance. The real reason the author meanders on to this tangent lies in his fervor for an unrelated progressive cause rather than actual concern about solutions.
Levine is right: People all over the United States are hurt when they are prescribed dangerous drugs they don’t need. But, in this, the fault belongs to a system that’s largely overseen by the government. As for public policy solutions, we must focus on ways to lower the cost of successful treatment for people who are in real need. Bringing in more government oversight or regulation only ups the price for those who struggle to afford it in the first place. In response to the VA’s malfeasance, precious few people were fired or indicted. This is the issue, as those committing the atrocities have to be held accountable. But whenever the federal government wants to protect one of its own, it tends to look the other way.
This is why the government must be treated like a company whenever its customers are hurt by its products. Think about it. If Walmart were selling products that killed thousands of Americans every year, they would be sued for millions of dollars. Why is it that when the federal government is responsible, the problem gets swept under the rug?
Mental Health, Inc. did succeed in providing a good deal of insight into the current mental health drug system and its flaws, yet it failed to provide realistic solutions. Making arguments about government failures while calling for more government solutions doesn’t make sense. Further regulation isn’t going to solve this crisis, but a revamp of the incentive structure surrounding mental health and prescription drugs just might.
Jake Grant (@thejakegrant) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a writer, researcher, and outreach director for a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group. He is a contributor for Young Voices.
