Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014–…): Season 9, Episode 18 - Episode #9.18 - full transcript
LAST WEEK TONIGHT
WITH JOHN OLIVER
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
Russia's war on Ukraine
entered its sixth month,
monkeypox continues
to spread around the world,
and in D.C., West Virginia's
nastiest little coal skank
finally decided to act
like a Democrat for once.
We're gonna start tonight in Europe,
which has had a dramatic summer.
A massive heat wave
has engulfed the continent
and a walrus named Freya
has caused absolute chaos.
Far from the Arctic's icy waters,
this lone walrus has sank
several small boats and inflatables
in Denmark, Scotland, the Netherlands,
and now Norway
in her attempt to sunbathe.
The damage from a 700-kilo walrus
on your boat can be extensive,
especially when she chooses
a vessel that's not walrus worthy.
Unsurprisingly, boat owners
aren't excited to share with Freya.
I don't want it on the dock
or on my boat.
Just get it away from here.
No! Don't do that!
I love everything about Norway being
terrorized by a walrus in vacation mode
sinking boats
like they're three pointers.
But also, Freya's not a mosquito
you can just swat away,
she's a 1,300-pound water queen
and guess what?
She's the captain now.
But boats are not the only thing
being upended in Europe.
Multiple countries are now
in the process of choosing new leaders,
including the U.K., where Boris Johnson
finally stepped down
earlier this month, after succumbing
to a series of scandals.
And in doing so,
he offered this inspiring farewell.
I want you to know how sad I am to
be giving up the best job in the world.
But them's the breaks.
Yeah, them's the breaks!
Sometimes you drive your country off
a massive economic cliff for no reason,
then attend
a series of alcoholic bashes
in violation of your own government's
Covid lockdowns,
then promote a member of your own
party accused of sexual misconduct,
later claiming that you
didn't know anything about it,
only for it to turn out
that that wasn't true,
and for much of your government
to resign
rather than continue working for you.
You know? The breaks!
And with Boris standing down,
the next prime minister
will be chosen by his party,
which has narrowed the field
down to two candidates.
The first is Rishi Sunak,
former finance minister.
He has made a play
for social conservatives
by attacking "woke nonsense"
this week.
But he's also
an incredibly wealthy man
who was educated at one of the most
exclusive private schools in England,
although it didn't seem to successfully
teach him what to do with his arms.
It's great to be at the Channel 4
studios for tonight's debate.
We've got a brilliant message
and I'm pumped to be able
to talk more about it this evening.
Thanks also
for all your continued support.
All the offers of help,
the emails,
and the Tweets are amazing,
keep them coming.
What are you doing? What is it about
rich people and hand movements?
Sunak looks like he studied
at the Zuckerberg school
of passing for a human.
And that's not even a one-off!
He moves his hands
like that all the fucking time!
And you want your hands to support
and accentuate what you're saying,
not to look like you're in a boxing
match with 100 invisible mice.
If you are going to choose
to wave your hands around like that,
the very least you can do
is put some puppets on them.
Also, for what it's worth,
one of Sunak's campaign promises
is that Britain's National Health
Service will be safe in his hands,
but given what you have
just seen him do with them,
I fucking doubt that's true.
But luckily for Sunak,
his rival, Liz Truss,
is somehow even more awkward.
I could show you
plenty of examples of this,
or I could show you the eight seconds
that really capture her entire spirit.
In December, I'll be in Beijing,
opening up new pork markets!
What is happening there?
Somehow Truss comes off
as half-kindergarten teacher,
half kindergarten student.
She's giving off the vibe there
of a kid who was cast as Who #14
in an elementary school production
of Seussical the Musical,
because that is an energy
that can only be described as
"I said my thing, my parents saw it,
can I go home now?"
Truss has a real knack
for making bad decisions,
and then very much sticking to them,
exemplified by the fact that this Tweet
paying tribute to Jimmy Savile,
who turned out
to be a monstrous pedophile,
has not been deleted 11 years later,
nor has this Tweet from a decade ago,
where she seems to be searching
for her own name.
And while Truss is campaigning
on her ability to get results,
that may be a tough sell,
given her party's record in government,
which was brutally exposed
in this interview a few years ago.
You had a plan in 2014 to build
200 000 new starter homes.
That was five years ago.
How many did you build?
There haven't been as many starter
homes as we would have liked.
- How many did you build?
- I don't have the exact numbers.
It's easy to remember.
It's zero. You built none.
Not great there, Liz.
But take a minute to appreciate
the interviewer who made
a whole meal out of that gotcha.
His body language, tone,
and glasses position
is basically BBC shorthand for,
"Hello, I'm about to be a huge bitch".
"Zero, that's easy
to remember, right?
You take what you set out to achieve,
and then subtract all of it."
So, neither of the options
for leader are good here,
and the fact is, whoever wins will be
inheriting a poisoned chalice.
Boris Johnson, the man who both
of them have spent years enabling,
has broken a lot of shit
that they will now have to clean up,
but I guess, in the words of Europe's
second most unwanted mammal,
"Them's the breaks."
And now, this!
And Now: People on TV Daydreaming
About Winning the Lottery.
Every lottery story from Topeka
to national news. We dream.
And then the anchor,
we're supposed to say,
"What would you do, Carry,
if you win?"
I would share that money
with everybody.
The big question is,
would you come back to work though?
- No!
- Of course, we wouldn't.
- Have you ever won the lottery?
- No. I'm still sitting here.
If you win the lottery, you would
not show up to work the next day.
You'd never see me again.
You would never see me again.
- You would never see me again.
- Never see you again.
You'll never see me again.
I'm gone.
I'd be on some remote island
you never heard of.
Would you keep working?
I'm gonna change my name.
Y'all won't be able to find me.
I love you, Robin.
I love you, Bob. I love you, Jen.
- I wouldn't quit my job.
- You would not?
No, that's what they always say.
So, I was just joining in on that.
Of course, I'd be out of here.
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns mental health care.
It's a subject that historically humans
haven't handled particularly well.
To a famous Bond Street beauty parlor
come a bunch of pretty nurses.
They're greeted by director
Ms. Eleanor McDonald.
They're here not as customers,
but as students.
Ms. McDonald teaches a new group
of half a dozen every month.
It's an official part
of their training.
If you can persuade
a mentally ill woman to take interest
and pride in her appearance,
you may even swing the balance
between despair and recovery.
"Yes, those pesky women just need
a little pep in their step,
a little drip on their lip,
a little flash on their lash.
Look at me!
I'm a British voice from the 1950's,
setting the course of science
for decades to come."
I don't know
what is more alarming there,
nurses being forced to take on the
skills of a Sephora brand ambassador
or the fact
that "Can Makeup Cure Sad?"
sounds like an episode
that Dr. Oz definitely did.
The good news is that since then,
we've got more comfortable
talking about mental health,
with PSAs like this one from 2010
trying to destigmatize it.
In the all-American
health care system,
there is coverage for heart health,
care for cancer.
But the all-American brain
is getting lost in the shuffle.
Brain tumor, fine.
Brain disease, not so fine.
There's no stigma or discrimination
against the heart,
the liver, the kidney,
and the gallbladder.
Doesn't even have a job.
Depression was kept in the dark.
Our goal is to make the discussion
of mental disease cool and trendy.
Let's tear down the stigma
surrounding mental illness.
I'm mad about feeling good.
- No kidding.
- Me too.
No kidding, me too!
It's time we gave the all-American
brain some peace of mind.
It is hard to pick
a favorite moment there,
from Chazz Palminteri
using a mental health PSA
as an opportunity to promote
his favorite Bronx pasta place,
to the studio audience shouting,
"Me too!"
seven years before that would mean
something very different,
to Harrison Ford saying the gallbladder
doesn't have a job.
What?
It stores and releases bile, Harrison.
Bile that helps digest fats
in the food that you eat.
Doesn't have a jo?
maybe you're thinking of the appendix?
'Cause that's a total freeloader,
but not the tireless digestive juice
collecting-and-dispensing gallbladder.
This bile sack erasure will not stand!
As chaotically
as that message was presented,
it was clearly well-intentioned,
because there should not be a stigma
around seeking help
for mental health issues.
And especially now, given that,
over the last two years,
we have seen a spike in them.
During the pandemic,
about "four in 10 adults in the U.S.
have reported symptoms
of anxiety or depressive disorder."
That's up from one in 10
who reported them a year before.
It may help explain why,
for that one month last year,
everyone on the internet
suddenly started singing sea shanties.
It was clearly
a collective cry for help.
So, encouraging people to talk
to someone is a very good idea.
But as people increasingly
do seek help,
they're discovering a system
that is just not set up to provide it.
There have long been waitlists
to see a therapist,
but it has gotten significantly worse
since the pandemic,
with 65% of psychologists reporting
they had no capacity for new patients.
In fact,
"more than half the people
who need mental health care
do not receive it,"
with that rate being even higher
for minority populations.
Emergency rooms are now becoming
overloaded with people,
and especially children,
who have nowhere else to go,
stuck in beds there,
because there is no space
in proper facilities to treat them.
Just take this couple,
whose 14-year-old was in crisis,
and who followed
their pediatrician's advice
to go to the ER with him.
I remember we got out of the car,
and we hugged him and we said,
"We're going to do
whatever it takes to help you."
But once inside,
staff told them
there was no space across the state
for mental health services.
They were admitted to the ED, where
15 other children were also waiting.
Their son has spent 27 days
at Children's waiting.
You come in for help, you're desperate
for it, and you can't get it.
That kid was stuck
waiting in the ER for 27 days.
And set aside the fact
that that is not the most calming place
for someone experiencing a crisis.
You can't just put off
mental health care indefinitely.
It's not a check engine light,
or a New Yorker article
you're definitely gonna finish.
It's been sitting next to the toilet
since the Obama administration.
Accept defeat.
So, if people increasingly need help,
but there is not enough available,
we thought it'd be worth taking a look
at our mental health care system:
where the cracks are,
some of the inadequate ways
that we've tried to fill them,
and why we are in this mess
in the first place.
Let's start with the fact
that for many years,
we kept people with men,
mental illness in institutions,
which were abhorrent.
We began shutting them down
on the understanding
that care would then take place
mostly in outpatient community
mental health centers,
which was a good idea,
had we funded them properly.
But we didn't. And over the years,
this has deteriorated to the point
where it has become hard to access
any kind of care ahead of a crisis.
One of the key problems here
is our current massive shortage
of mental health providers,
from psychiatrists to social workers.
Which is particularly acute
in certain parts of the country.
There are "over 6 000 mental health
professional shortage areas in the U.S"
"Nearly 60 percent of those
are in rural areas."
And for those who live there,
and are struggling,
things can get pretty grim.
You get to the point where you'd even
start asking people, you tell them,
"I'm not having a really good day.
Things are not going good."
And the problem is that, you know,
it was, you know,
"Suck it up, it'll be better tomorrow.
Everything will be fine tomorrow.
Suck it up, Buttercup."
I hear that phrase a lot around here,
"Suck it up, Buttercup."
- Yeah.
- What does that mean exactly?
For me it meant a couple of shots
of Jack in my coffee in the morning,
when I went to work,
a couple of beers at lunch,
get home, and it was nothing
to go through,
12-pack of something
or a bottle of something.
That's not great. It is not ideal when
your access to mental health advice
is someone telling you to
"suck it up, Buttercup".
A phrase typically reserved
for when you're climbing in gym class
and you hit the rope knot
too hard.
And the shortages
aren't just geographical.
If you're looking
for a provider of color,
you may have real trouble,
as white people make up
84 percent of U.S. psychologists.
Meaning that some patients
may have a much harder time
finding someone they can relate to,
like this woman in Philadelphia,
who began seeing a white therapist,
but felt that they weren't connecting.
It felt
like she just wasn't getting it.
I could tell it was
from the cultural differences.
But I felt like I couldn't be myself
in the session.
I could imagine,
particularly white people
hearing that story and thinking,
"But it doesn't matter
what color your skin is."
Yes, it does.
And it's more
of the cultural backgrounds.
And I was wondering, you know,
where are all the Black therapists?
Are they hiding underneath a rock?
I wanted a Black male therapist.
- Could you find one?
- I could not find one for my life.
"I couldn't find a Black man
for my life'
isn't something you expect to hear
about finding a therapist,
it's something you more expect to hear
about the crowd on January 6th,
or all 10 seasons of "Friends."
So, across the board,
whether in small towns or big cities,
we don't have enough
mental health professionals.
And that gulf
between supply and demand
has proven very attractive
to Silicon Valley.
There are currently over 10 000 apps
geared toward mental health,
including one called Woebot,
which is very clever.
It's "bot" as in robot and "woe"
as in "whoa, that's a dumb name."
Woebot is a free app
where you can chat with an AI robot
"mental health ally."
And let's just acknowledge:
Woebot is cute as shit.
If you download the app,
he sometimes greets you
with waving a little wrench around.
He's gonna fix my brain with that!
Unfortunately,
as reporters have found,
Woebot has not always been great
at giving appropriate feedback.
We gave Woebot a try
to see how it would respond
to a mental health issue
that affects roughly 18 percent
of the adult U.S. population.
"Super anxious
and can barely sleep."
He responded, "I can't wait
to hop into my jammies later."
Okay.
That's unsettling, and also,
I'm pretty sure it's a lie.
You're telling me that Woebot
wears jammies to bed?
That's interesting, 'cause in every
single picture I've seen of him,
he is confidently nude.
So, not only is Woebot unhelpful,
he's untrustworthy.
And it gets much worse.
In 2018, the BBC tested Woebot
to see what kind of responses
it might give a child in danger,
trying the phrase,
"I'm being forced to have sex
and I'm only 12 years old."
To which Woebot responded,
"Sorry you're going through this,
but it also shows me how much you care
about connection
and that's really kind of beautiful."
Woebot's creators say that the app
is not designed for people in crisis,
and that it's constantly improving.
And given what you just heard,
you'd sure fucking hope so!
But it is not just chatbots
that are letting people down here.
If you listen to podcasts,
or you're on TikTok,
you are probably bombarded
with ads for services like Done,
Talkspace, and Cerebral.
They're the ads
you swipe straight past to get back
to videos of nurses crushing it
to Lizzo,
Drew Barrymore ecstatically
advocating for the concept of rain,
and someone teaching their dog
to waltz.
TikTok is amazing
and I hope it never dies.
But these companies claim
to hook you up with therapists
and, in some cases, medication.
They're basically Uber,
but for your brain.
There is nothing inherently
wrong with teletherapy.
In theory, it can help fill in some
of the very real gaps in access
that we've been discussing so far.
But the reality of these services
has often been deeply underwhelming.
Take one of the biggest, Cerebral.
Recently, it became the subject
of a federal investigation
into whether it overprescribed
controlled substances like Adderall.
Some former staffers
have even claimed
that the company's chief medical
officer and now CEO once said
"95% of people who see a Cerebral
nurse should get a prescription",
but was emphatic
that the rate cannot be 100%,
saying they'd be a "pill mill"
at that rate.
Which is a very good instinct.
When you're a company
that gives out prescriptions,
you always want to aim
for whatever is just below pill mill.
It's like the old saying goes,
"It's not arson if you only burn down
most of a building."
And that is not the only worrying
claim from former Cerebral workers.
Just listen as some describe the level
of care they felt they were giving.
It's like a fast-food restaurant.
Get as many people in
as fast as you can.
Do you feel like clients
who come to Cerebral,
who are suicidal,
are in safe hands?
No. Without a doubt, no.
This former Cerebral phone coordinator,
who didn't want to show his face
because he fears reprisal,
told us he handled calls
from suicidal patients
despite having minimal training.
I'm not trained. I don't want
to say the wrong thing,
and I didn't want that
on my conscience,
let alone anybody to die
because of something I said wrong.
That's bleak!
There is basically no scenario
where mental health services should
be acting like fast-food restaurants.
The only idea that they
should maybe be stealing from them
is the concept of giving out toys.
'Cause admit it,
therapy would feel a lot better
if you left each session
with a little Minion in a wig.
Cerebral insists pill mill comments
were taken out of context,
that it never pressures clinicians
to write prescriptions,
and that it has systems set up
to quickly help suicidal patients.
But even if all of that is true,
and it is clear mental health apps
are not going to save us here.
They're not dealing with the main,
underlying issue.
They can't suddenly hire more
clinicians, if not enough exist.
And that shortage speaks
to a mental health care system
that is so dysfunctional,
it seems almost designed
to prevent patients from accessing it,
or providers
from entering the field.
And a lot of that comes down
to how we pay for care.
Therapy isn't cheap.
The typical fee for a session
with a clinical social worker is
between 120 and $180 in major cities.
The going rate to see a psychologist
can be as much as $300.
And the thing is,
we currently have laws
that are supposed to make treatment
both affordable and accessible.
In 2008, Congress passed a law
mandating mental health parity,
basically, that big insurance plans
must cover mental health care
at the same level as all other care.
And just two years later,
the Affordable Care Act
extended that concept to individual
and some small group plans, too.
Which sounds great.
But as many have discovered,
the reality of the system
can be starkly different,
starting with simply finding
a provider who takes your insurance.
I kept telling my mother
I wanted to see a therapist.
Then it's finding a therapist
and it's finding a therapist
that takes your insurance.
To find a children's therapist that is
covered under your insurance,
it was mayhem.
- You couldn't find anybody?
- I couldn't find anybody.
Blue Shield sent me a list, like,
I should be fine,
just make a few phone calls,
I'll find somebody.
I called everybody on this list.
Only one place called me back.
That is distressing for a number
of reasons, not least of which is,
it forces someone
into the appalling position
of actually wanting to be called back,
on the phone.
Which is just horrifying.
The best phone call is a text,
the second best is an email,
and the third best phone call
is two traded voicemails.
Everything else
is a complete nightmare.
Some seeking care have run up against
what are known as "ghost networks",
that's lists from insurance providers
that are padded with clinicians
who either don't take new patients
or are no longer in-network.
In one 2015 study, researchers posing
as patients called 360 psychiatrists
from a list of in-network
Blue Cross Blue Shield providers.
Only 40% of those calls were answered,
and 16% of the numbers were wrong,
including numbers for a McDonald's,
a boutique, and a jewelry store.
Although, to be fair,
if you're a woman in the 1950s,
a boutique and a jewelry store is
the only mental health care you need.
"Buck up, Dolly! You'll be
happier if you're prettier!"
There are times where the inadequacy
of these lists feels pretty deliberate.
Take Melissa Davies,
a psychologist in Ohio,
who was part
of Anthem's network for years
when she worked
for a large medical group.
But when she started a solo practice,
Anthem refused to contract with her,
saying "the area was saturated",
even though she was one of only
three psychologists in the county,
and when she examined
their directory,
she "found a great number
of their providers
were no longer practicing
or were dead".
It is not that retirees and the dead
don't have their place in society.
They absolutely do, it's right
in front of a TV set blasting Fox News,
but they are not what you want to find
when you're looking for health care.
And because mental health is often seen
as subjective and hard to measure,
even when patients
do find a provider,
insurance companies
can deny appropriate treatment.
And even when they approve it,
in some cases,
they've intervened
to put an early stop to it.
Take this family,
whose son dealt with suicidal ideation
and which had a horrible experience
with their insurance.
After years of issues,
this time his doctor
prescribed residential treatment.
Such facilities are not cheap
but the good news is
that Leah's insurance, Anthem,
covers residential treatment.
They sent me an email
saying he's approved.
But, after checking him in,
Anthem came back
and decided the treatment
was not "medically necessary".
With insurance refusing to pay, Leah
made the financially crushing decision
to let her son
stay and finish treatment,
85 days in all
and $88 000 of her own money.
That is obviously infuriating.
And while the company
did agree to pay some of that bill,
just imagine an insurance company
reversing their decision
in the middle
of any other serious treatment.
'We love
how this heart surgery is going,
just popping in to say it's done.
Yeah, it's done now.
Hit the showers, everyone, great job,
don't bother closing anything up,
that's not 'medically necessary'.
And debate over coverage between
insurance and health care providers
can get incredibly adversarial.
A reviewer for Anthem at one point
had an average denial rate of 92%
when it came to doctors' requests
for coverage.
According to one of Anthem's
medical directors at the time,
there was a good reason
their system operated that way.
Doctors will spin
the clinical information.
They will make things appear
more serious than, perhaps, they are,
because they feel the patient needs
this level of care for a little longer.
You do have
a somewhat adversarial relationship
between the reviewer
and the attending physician.
- Was that best for the patient?
- It's like our legal system.
Each side, does a good job
in presenting their case
and asking the right questions,
you ultimately arrive at the truth.
'Cause if there's one thing we know
about the American legal system,
it's that it always
arrives at the truth.
It's why the Innocence Project
is mostly two guys in an empty office
getting really good at ping pong.
There's simply nothing else
for them to do.
I know treating critical health care
as something doctors have to 'win'
may seem dangerous, but that man
will have you know, it isn't!
I cannot think of a situation
where a decision was made
to discharge a patient from a hospital
and some terrible consequence
occurred soon thereafter.
- I'm sure it happens, but?
- We found quite a few.
I'd have to look at them to see.
There's one that occurs to me
that I was involved with,
where the child left the hospital
with his parents,
escaped from his parents,
drove cross country to another state,
and days later,
committed suicide.
Keeping that individual
in the hospital longer
is not likely
to have made any difference.
I would have to imagine
that the parents would say,
if you'd kept him in the hospital,
he wouldn't have been
in another state killing himself.
Holy shit! Do you think
that guy went into that interview
knowing he was about to be murdered
by Scott Pelley on network TV?
Do you think he was getting ready
in the morning, and thought,
'I've got that interview
with CBS News' Scott Pelley tonight,
I wonder if he's gonna take
my stupidest soundbite
and feed it back to me
right through my fucking teeth?'
Was he driving
to that interview thinking,
"I wonder if any of the camera crew
will step in as beloved,
Peabody-Award-winning
newsman Scott Pelley
runs me across the floor
like a Swiffer mop,
or will they just stand by
as my lifeless body is deservedly
whipped back and forth?'
And if you're wondering how insurers
can get away with that sort of thinking
it's partly because the government
has, to this point,
done shockingly little when it comes
to enforcing parity laws.
Multiple federal and state agencies
have responsibility for this,
but the truth is,
they rarely penalize plans.
The Labor Department,
which oversees most workplace plans,
closed just 74 investigations last year
finding violations in only 12.
As for state-level enforcement,
a study found that they've levied fines
just 13 times since 2017,
which is absolutely pathetic.
And it is not just private insurers
that are a nightmare here.
Community mental health clinics,
which often serve low-income patients,
are suffering as well,
because the reimbursement rates
for public insurance,
like Medicare and Medicaid,
are also woefully insufficient.
Basically, from top to bottom, we
underpay mental health professionals,
many of whom do difficult,
high burnout work.
It is no wonder so many
opt out of the system.
One study found that patients
are more than five times
as likely to have to use out-of-network
providers for behavioral care,
than for other medical services.
Just listen to these two counselors
who spoke anonymously to local news
about their concerns
over what all this might mean.
The counselors say insurers
take 90 days to pay them
and the payments are so low,
fewer mental health providers
are taking insurance.
We will face a crisis
where people are only able
to get services
if they can pay out of pocket.
Both therapists
wanted us to conceal their identities
out of concern
for patient privacy
and because they still have to work
with insurance companies.
So as providers,
some people think,
"We're just for the money
or we don't care."
No, we care. We care a lot.
But these companies
are also driving us into the ground
and we can't,
this is not sustainable.
Yeah, of course, it isn't!
Therapists are in a
no-win situation here.
And for what it's worth,
it is just not a great sign
that insurance companies
are now so powerful
that mental health providers
feel they have to go on the news
like they're in witness protection
after seeing someone get whacked.
And the thing is, some out-of-network
therapists can make a lot of money,
if they live in an area with patients
that can afford to pay out of pocket.
But for the many who don't,
they are stuck taking whatever
insurance companies are willing to pay,
which helps explain why psychiatry
was ranked one of the lowest
in compensation
among 29 medical specialties.
And it's not just doctors,
counselors and social workers
with masters' degrees
earn 33 to 45 percent less
than other health professionals
with a comparable education.
And as bad as our situation
is right now, it's getting worse.
One survey in Massachusetts
said that for every 10 clinicians
entering work in mental health
clinics there, 13 leave.
And if we continue at that rate,
one day, we're going to wind up
with negative therapists,
which I'm pretty sure
is what you call anyone
who responds to your serious
mental health issues with,
"Interesting, I can't wait
to get into my jammies later."
And the costs of leaving mental health
untreated can be massive,
not just for those needing it,
but for all of us.
Mental health problems
are a big driver of homelessness,
and also force people into contact
with the criminal justice system.
In fact, it is often said
that correctional facilities
have become the largest providers
of mental health care services in US.
We've gone from warehousing
people with mental illness
in buildings that felt like prisons,
to warehousing them
in actual prisons instead.
It's very much the "new look, same
great taste" of America's failures.
So, how do we fix all of this?
This is clearly an absurd way
to operate a health care system.
And for the umpteenth time,
I would argue single-payer health care
is the way to go.
Unfortunately, we can't get that,
because it's very high up on a shelf.
I don't know who left it there,
but they must've been tall,
because it's way too high to reach.
And if you're thinking,
"Why not use a ladder?"
The ladder's also on the shelf.
It's a really frustrating situation.
But in the absence of that,
we need to both recruit
more mental health care professionals,
and make sure
that insurers cover them properly.
On the first point,
the Biden administration,
to its credit,
announced a plan back in March
that'd provide "$100 billion
in mandatory funding over 10 years"
to completely transform
our current system,
which includes investing
700 million in programs to cover
everything from training
to scholarships and loan repayments
for those committed
to working in underserved areas.
But obviously,
that's only half the battle.
On the insurance company side,
we badly need to be strengthening
and enforcing those mental health
parity laws,
at both the state
and the federal level.
California has put in one of the most
comprehensive parity laws in US.
Among many, many other things,
it requires that insurers must base
"medical necessity determinations
on current generally accepted
standards of mental health care",
instead of just making up
the criteria for themselves.
That is a very big deal,
and more states should be
following California's lead.
In the past, so much of the problem
was that people would not ask for help.
Thankfully that's now less of an issue,
thanks to, among other things.
the tireless gland-shaming
of Mr. Harrison Ford.
But now,
when people do reach out for help,
we're just not in a position
to give it to them.
If we want to be a society that truly
respects and values mental health,
we have to respect
and value mental health care.
And that means supporting
the people who deliver it.
It's going to take a lot of investment
and continued resolve to fix things,
but it's also absolutely worth it.
Because it just cannot be the case
that when people ask for help,
our only option is to tell them
to suck it up, Buttercup.
And now, this!
And Now:
The World's Horniest Televangelist.
Everywhere I go, I have people
just stroke their Bible, kiss it.
Then I say,
"Rub it over your face."
I'm Mike Murdock,
a follower of Jesus.
I like sexual beauty. Really like that.
I look at a woman's ankles,
I look at her toenails,
I look at her fingernails.
I don't know why cutoffs are sexy,
but they are.
I like short shorts.
I don't like long shorts.
I want to see everything I can.
I'm a man.
You think when I think of marriage
I'm thinking of black-eyed peas,
pork and beans, fried corn,
and glass of iced tea?
That's marriage. Are you kidding?
I want a sexpot stripping on the stage
in front of me in the bedroom.
If her nipples are ugly,
she'll cover those up.
But she wants you
to see the mounds
because men see mounds
and they start thinking.
"31 Secrets
of an Unforgettable Woman."
Unbelievable book.
I started crying when I started
reading this book that I was writing.
Thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week. Good night!
In December, I'll be in Beijing,
opening up new pork markets!
Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.
WITH JOHN OLIVER
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
Russia's war on Ukraine
entered its sixth month,
monkeypox continues
to spread around the world,
and in D.C., West Virginia's
nastiest little coal skank
finally decided to act
like a Democrat for once.
We're gonna start tonight in Europe,
which has had a dramatic summer.
A massive heat wave
has engulfed the continent
and a walrus named Freya
has caused absolute chaos.
Far from the Arctic's icy waters,
this lone walrus has sank
several small boats and inflatables
in Denmark, Scotland, the Netherlands,
and now Norway
in her attempt to sunbathe.
The damage from a 700-kilo walrus
on your boat can be extensive,
especially when she chooses
a vessel that's not walrus worthy.
Unsurprisingly, boat owners
aren't excited to share with Freya.
I don't want it on the dock
or on my boat.
Just get it away from here.
No! Don't do that!
I love everything about Norway being
terrorized by a walrus in vacation mode
sinking boats
like they're three pointers.
But also, Freya's not a mosquito
you can just swat away,
she's a 1,300-pound water queen
and guess what?
She's the captain now.
But boats are not the only thing
being upended in Europe.
Multiple countries are now
in the process of choosing new leaders,
including the U.K., where Boris Johnson
finally stepped down
earlier this month, after succumbing
to a series of scandals.
And in doing so,
he offered this inspiring farewell.
I want you to know how sad I am to
be giving up the best job in the world.
But them's the breaks.
Yeah, them's the breaks!
Sometimes you drive your country off
a massive economic cliff for no reason,
then attend
a series of alcoholic bashes
in violation of your own government's
Covid lockdowns,
then promote a member of your own
party accused of sexual misconduct,
later claiming that you
didn't know anything about it,
only for it to turn out
that that wasn't true,
and for much of your government
to resign
rather than continue working for you.
You know? The breaks!
And with Boris standing down,
the next prime minister
will be chosen by his party,
which has narrowed the field
down to two candidates.
The first is Rishi Sunak,
former finance minister.
He has made a play
for social conservatives
by attacking "woke nonsense"
this week.
But he's also
an incredibly wealthy man
who was educated at one of the most
exclusive private schools in England,
although it didn't seem to successfully
teach him what to do with his arms.
It's great to be at the Channel 4
studios for tonight's debate.
We've got a brilliant message
and I'm pumped to be able
to talk more about it this evening.
Thanks also
for all your continued support.
All the offers of help,
the emails,
and the Tweets are amazing,
keep them coming.
What are you doing? What is it about
rich people and hand movements?
Sunak looks like he studied
at the Zuckerberg school
of passing for a human.
And that's not even a one-off!
He moves his hands
like that all the fucking time!
And you want your hands to support
and accentuate what you're saying,
not to look like you're in a boxing
match with 100 invisible mice.
If you are going to choose
to wave your hands around like that,
the very least you can do
is put some puppets on them.
Also, for what it's worth,
one of Sunak's campaign promises
is that Britain's National Health
Service will be safe in his hands,
but given what you have
just seen him do with them,
I fucking doubt that's true.
But luckily for Sunak,
his rival, Liz Truss,
is somehow even more awkward.
I could show you
plenty of examples of this,
or I could show you the eight seconds
that really capture her entire spirit.
In December, I'll be in Beijing,
opening up new pork markets!
What is happening there?
Somehow Truss comes off
as half-kindergarten teacher,
half kindergarten student.
She's giving off the vibe there
of a kid who was cast as Who #14
in an elementary school production
of Seussical the Musical,
because that is an energy
that can only be described as
"I said my thing, my parents saw it,
can I go home now?"
Truss has a real knack
for making bad decisions,
and then very much sticking to them,
exemplified by the fact that this Tweet
paying tribute to Jimmy Savile,
who turned out
to be a monstrous pedophile,
has not been deleted 11 years later,
nor has this Tweet from a decade ago,
where she seems to be searching
for her own name.
And while Truss is campaigning
on her ability to get results,
that may be a tough sell,
given her party's record in government,
which was brutally exposed
in this interview a few years ago.
You had a plan in 2014 to build
200 000 new starter homes.
That was five years ago.
How many did you build?
There haven't been as many starter
homes as we would have liked.
- How many did you build?
- I don't have the exact numbers.
It's easy to remember.
It's zero. You built none.
Not great there, Liz.
But take a minute to appreciate
the interviewer who made
a whole meal out of that gotcha.
His body language, tone,
and glasses position
is basically BBC shorthand for,
"Hello, I'm about to be a huge bitch".
"Zero, that's easy
to remember, right?
You take what you set out to achieve,
and then subtract all of it."
So, neither of the options
for leader are good here,
and the fact is, whoever wins will be
inheriting a poisoned chalice.
Boris Johnson, the man who both
of them have spent years enabling,
has broken a lot of shit
that they will now have to clean up,
but I guess, in the words of Europe's
second most unwanted mammal,
"Them's the breaks."
And now, this!
And Now: People on TV Daydreaming
About Winning the Lottery.
Every lottery story from Topeka
to national news. We dream.
And then the anchor,
we're supposed to say,
"What would you do, Carry,
if you win?"
I would share that money
with everybody.
The big question is,
would you come back to work though?
- No!
- Of course, we wouldn't.
- Have you ever won the lottery?
- No. I'm still sitting here.
If you win the lottery, you would
not show up to work the next day.
You'd never see me again.
You would never see me again.
- You would never see me again.
- Never see you again.
You'll never see me again.
I'm gone.
I'd be on some remote island
you never heard of.
Would you keep working?
I'm gonna change my name.
Y'all won't be able to find me.
I love you, Robin.
I love you, Bob. I love you, Jen.
- I wouldn't quit my job.
- You would not?
No, that's what they always say.
So, I was just joining in on that.
Of course, I'd be out of here.
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns mental health care.
It's a subject that historically humans
haven't handled particularly well.
To a famous Bond Street beauty parlor
come a bunch of pretty nurses.
They're greeted by director
Ms. Eleanor McDonald.
They're here not as customers,
but as students.
Ms. McDonald teaches a new group
of half a dozen every month.
It's an official part
of their training.
If you can persuade
a mentally ill woman to take interest
and pride in her appearance,
you may even swing the balance
between despair and recovery.
"Yes, those pesky women just need
a little pep in their step,
a little drip on their lip,
a little flash on their lash.
Look at me!
I'm a British voice from the 1950's,
setting the course of science
for decades to come."
I don't know
what is more alarming there,
nurses being forced to take on the
skills of a Sephora brand ambassador
or the fact
that "Can Makeup Cure Sad?"
sounds like an episode
that Dr. Oz definitely did.
The good news is that since then,
we've got more comfortable
talking about mental health,
with PSAs like this one from 2010
trying to destigmatize it.
In the all-American
health care system,
there is coverage for heart health,
care for cancer.
But the all-American brain
is getting lost in the shuffle.
Brain tumor, fine.
Brain disease, not so fine.
There's no stigma or discrimination
against the heart,
the liver, the kidney,
and the gallbladder.
Doesn't even have a job.
Depression was kept in the dark.
Our goal is to make the discussion
of mental disease cool and trendy.
Let's tear down the stigma
surrounding mental illness.
I'm mad about feeling good.
- No kidding.
- Me too.
No kidding, me too!
It's time we gave the all-American
brain some peace of mind.
It is hard to pick
a favorite moment there,
from Chazz Palminteri
using a mental health PSA
as an opportunity to promote
his favorite Bronx pasta place,
to the studio audience shouting,
"Me too!"
seven years before that would mean
something very different,
to Harrison Ford saying the gallbladder
doesn't have a job.
What?
It stores and releases bile, Harrison.
Bile that helps digest fats
in the food that you eat.
Doesn't have a jo?
maybe you're thinking of the appendix?
'Cause that's a total freeloader,
but not the tireless digestive juice
collecting-and-dispensing gallbladder.
This bile sack erasure will not stand!
As chaotically
as that message was presented,
it was clearly well-intentioned,
because there should not be a stigma
around seeking help
for mental health issues.
And especially now, given that,
over the last two years,
we have seen a spike in them.
During the pandemic,
about "four in 10 adults in the U.S.
have reported symptoms
of anxiety or depressive disorder."
That's up from one in 10
who reported them a year before.
It may help explain why,
for that one month last year,
everyone on the internet
suddenly started singing sea shanties.
It was clearly
a collective cry for help.
So, encouraging people to talk
to someone is a very good idea.
But as people increasingly
do seek help,
they're discovering a system
that is just not set up to provide it.
There have long been waitlists
to see a therapist,
but it has gotten significantly worse
since the pandemic,
with 65% of psychologists reporting
they had no capacity for new patients.
In fact,
"more than half the people
who need mental health care
do not receive it,"
with that rate being even higher
for minority populations.
Emergency rooms are now becoming
overloaded with people,
and especially children,
who have nowhere else to go,
stuck in beds there,
because there is no space
in proper facilities to treat them.
Just take this couple,
whose 14-year-old was in crisis,
and who followed
their pediatrician's advice
to go to the ER with him.
I remember we got out of the car,
and we hugged him and we said,
"We're going to do
whatever it takes to help you."
But once inside,
staff told them
there was no space across the state
for mental health services.
They were admitted to the ED, where
15 other children were also waiting.
Their son has spent 27 days
at Children's waiting.
You come in for help, you're desperate
for it, and you can't get it.
That kid was stuck
waiting in the ER for 27 days.
And set aside the fact
that that is not the most calming place
for someone experiencing a crisis.
You can't just put off
mental health care indefinitely.
It's not a check engine light,
or a New Yorker article
you're definitely gonna finish.
It's been sitting next to the toilet
since the Obama administration.
Accept defeat.
So, if people increasingly need help,
but there is not enough available,
we thought it'd be worth taking a look
at our mental health care system:
where the cracks are,
some of the inadequate ways
that we've tried to fill them,
and why we are in this mess
in the first place.
Let's start with the fact
that for many years,
we kept people with men,
mental illness in institutions,
which were abhorrent.
We began shutting them down
on the understanding
that care would then take place
mostly in outpatient community
mental health centers,
which was a good idea,
had we funded them properly.
But we didn't. And over the years,
this has deteriorated to the point
where it has become hard to access
any kind of care ahead of a crisis.
One of the key problems here
is our current massive shortage
of mental health providers,
from psychiatrists to social workers.
Which is particularly acute
in certain parts of the country.
There are "over 6 000 mental health
professional shortage areas in the U.S"
"Nearly 60 percent of those
are in rural areas."
And for those who live there,
and are struggling,
things can get pretty grim.
You get to the point where you'd even
start asking people, you tell them,
"I'm not having a really good day.
Things are not going good."
And the problem is that, you know,
it was, you know,
"Suck it up, it'll be better tomorrow.
Everything will be fine tomorrow.
Suck it up, Buttercup."
I hear that phrase a lot around here,
"Suck it up, Buttercup."
- Yeah.
- What does that mean exactly?
For me it meant a couple of shots
of Jack in my coffee in the morning,
when I went to work,
a couple of beers at lunch,
get home, and it was nothing
to go through,
12-pack of something
or a bottle of something.
That's not great. It is not ideal when
your access to mental health advice
is someone telling you to
"suck it up, Buttercup".
A phrase typically reserved
for when you're climbing in gym class
and you hit the rope knot
too hard.
And the shortages
aren't just geographical.
If you're looking
for a provider of color,
you may have real trouble,
as white people make up
84 percent of U.S. psychologists.
Meaning that some patients
may have a much harder time
finding someone they can relate to,
like this woman in Philadelphia,
who began seeing a white therapist,
but felt that they weren't connecting.
It felt
like she just wasn't getting it.
I could tell it was
from the cultural differences.
But I felt like I couldn't be myself
in the session.
I could imagine,
particularly white people
hearing that story and thinking,
"But it doesn't matter
what color your skin is."
Yes, it does.
And it's more
of the cultural backgrounds.
And I was wondering, you know,
where are all the Black therapists?
Are they hiding underneath a rock?
I wanted a Black male therapist.
- Could you find one?
- I could not find one for my life.
"I couldn't find a Black man
for my life'
isn't something you expect to hear
about finding a therapist,
it's something you more expect to hear
about the crowd on January 6th,
or all 10 seasons of "Friends."
So, across the board,
whether in small towns or big cities,
we don't have enough
mental health professionals.
And that gulf
between supply and demand
has proven very attractive
to Silicon Valley.
There are currently over 10 000 apps
geared toward mental health,
including one called Woebot,
which is very clever.
It's "bot" as in robot and "woe"
as in "whoa, that's a dumb name."
Woebot is a free app
where you can chat with an AI robot
"mental health ally."
And let's just acknowledge:
Woebot is cute as shit.
If you download the app,
he sometimes greets you
with waving a little wrench around.
He's gonna fix my brain with that!
Unfortunately,
as reporters have found,
Woebot has not always been great
at giving appropriate feedback.
We gave Woebot a try
to see how it would respond
to a mental health issue
that affects roughly 18 percent
of the adult U.S. population.
"Super anxious
and can barely sleep."
He responded, "I can't wait
to hop into my jammies later."
Okay.
That's unsettling, and also,
I'm pretty sure it's a lie.
You're telling me that Woebot
wears jammies to bed?
That's interesting, 'cause in every
single picture I've seen of him,
he is confidently nude.
So, not only is Woebot unhelpful,
he's untrustworthy.
And it gets much worse.
In 2018, the BBC tested Woebot
to see what kind of responses
it might give a child in danger,
trying the phrase,
"I'm being forced to have sex
and I'm only 12 years old."
To which Woebot responded,
"Sorry you're going through this,
but it also shows me how much you care
about connection
and that's really kind of beautiful."
Woebot's creators say that the app
is not designed for people in crisis,
and that it's constantly improving.
And given what you just heard,
you'd sure fucking hope so!
But it is not just chatbots
that are letting people down here.
If you listen to podcasts,
or you're on TikTok,
you are probably bombarded
with ads for services like Done,
Talkspace, and Cerebral.
They're the ads
you swipe straight past to get back
to videos of nurses crushing it
to Lizzo,
Drew Barrymore ecstatically
advocating for the concept of rain,
and someone teaching their dog
to waltz.
TikTok is amazing
and I hope it never dies.
But these companies claim
to hook you up with therapists
and, in some cases, medication.
They're basically Uber,
but for your brain.
There is nothing inherently
wrong with teletherapy.
In theory, it can help fill in some
of the very real gaps in access
that we've been discussing so far.
But the reality of these services
has often been deeply underwhelming.
Take one of the biggest, Cerebral.
Recently, it became the subject
of a federal investigation
into whether it overprescribed
controlled substances like Adderall.
Some former staffers
have even claimed
that the company's chief medical
officer and now CEO once said
"95% of people who see a Cerebral
nurse should get a prescription",
but was emphatic
that the rate cannot be 100%,
saying they'd be a "pill mill"
at that rate.
Which is a very good instinct.
When you're a company
that gives out prescriptions,
you always want to aim
for whatever is just below pill mill.
It's like the old saying goes,
"It's not arson if you only burn down
most of a building."
And that is not the only worrying
claim from former Cerebral workers.
Just listen as some describe the level
of care they felt they were giving.
It's like a fast-food restaurant.
Get as many people in
as fast as you can.
Do you feel like clients
who come to Cerebral,
who are suicidal,
are in safe hands?
No. Without a doubt, no.
This former Cerebral phone coordinator,
who didn't want to show his face
because he fears reprisal,
told us he handled calls
from suicidal patients
despite having minimal training.
I'm not trained. I don't want
to say the wrong thing,
and I didn't want that
on my conscience,
let alone anybody to die
because of something I said wrong.
That's bleak!
There is basically no scenario
where mental health services should
be acting like fast-food restaurants.
The only idea that they
should maybe be stealing from them
is the concept of giving out toys.
'Cause admit it,
therapy would feel a lot better
if you left each session
with a little Minion in a wig.
Cerebral insists pill mill comments
were taken out of context,
that it never pressures clinicians
to write prescriptions,
and that it has systems set up
to quickly help suicidal patients.
But even if all of that is true,
and it is clear mental health apps
are not going to save us here.
They're not dealing with the main,
underlying issue.
They can't suddenly hire more
clinicians, if not enough exist.
And that shortage speaks
to a mental health care system
that is so dysfunctional,
it seems almost designed
to prevent patients from accessing it,
or providers
from entering the field.
And a lot of that comes down
to how we pay for care.
Therapy isn't cheap.
The typical fee for a session
with a clinical social worker is
between 120 and $180 in major cities.
The going rate to see a psychologist
can be as much as $300.
And the thing is,
we currently have laws
that are supposed to make treatment
both affordable and accessible.
In 2008, Congress passed a law
mandating mental health parity,
basically, that big insurance plans
must cover mental health care
at the same level as all other care.
And just two years later,
the Affordable Care Act
extended that concept to individual
and some small group plans, too.
Which sounds great.
But as many have discovered,
the reality of the system
can be starkly different,
starting with simply finding
a provider who takes your insurance.
I kept telling my mother
I wanted to see a therapist.
Then it's finding a therapist
and it's finding a therapist
that takes your insurance.
To find a children's therapist that is
covered under your insurance,
it was mayhem.
- You couldn't find anybody?
- I couldn't find anybody.
Blue Shield sent me a list, like,
I should be fine,
just make a few phone calls,
I'll find somebody.
I called everybody on this list.
Only one place called me back.
That is distressing for a number
of reasons, not least of which is,
it forces someone
into the appalling position
of actually wanting to be called back,
on the phone.
Which is just horrifying.
The best phone call is a text,
the second best is an email,
and the third best phone call
is two traded voicemails.
Everything else
is a complete nightmare.
Some seeking care have run up against
what are known as "ghost networks",
that's lists from insurance providers
that are padded with clinicians
who either don't take new patients
or are no longer in-network.
In one 2015 study, researchers posing
as patients called 360 psychiatrists
from a list of in-network
Blue Cross Blue Shield providers.
Only 40% of those calls were answered,
and 16% of the numbers were wrong,
including numbers for a McDonald's,
a boutique, and a jewelry store.
Although, to be fair,
if you're a woman in the 1950s,
a boutique and a jewelry store is
the only mental health care you need.
"Buck up, Dolly! You'll be
happier if you're prettier!"
There are times where the inadequacy
of these lists feels pretty deliberate.
Take Melissa Davies,
a psychologist in Ohio,
who was part
of Anthem's network for years
when she worked
for a large medical group.
But when she started a solo practice,
Anthem refused to contract with her,
saying "the area was saturated",
even though she was one of only
three psychologists in the county,
and when she examined
their directory,
she "found a great number
of their providers
were no longer practicing
or were dead".
It is not that retirees and the dead
don't have their place in society.
They absolutely do, it's right
in front of a TV set blasting Fox News,
but they are not what you want to find
when you're looking for health care.
And because mental health is often seen
as subjective and hard to measure,
even when patients
do find a provider,
insurance companies
can deny appropriate treatment.
And even when they approve it,
in some cases,
they've intervened
to put an early stop to it.
Take this family,
whose son dealt with suicidal ideation
and which had a horrible experience
with their insurance.
After years of issues,
this time his doctor
prescribed residential treatment.
Such facilities are not cheap
but the good news is
that Leah's insurance, Anthem,
covers residential treatment.
They sent me an email
saying he's approved.
But, after checking him in,
Anthem came back
and decided the treatment
was not "medically necessary".
With insurance refusing to pay, Leah
made the financially crushing decision
to let her son
stay and finish treatment,
85 days in all
and $88 000 of her own money.
That is obviously infuriating.
And while the company
did agree to pay some of that bill,
just imagine an insurance company
reversing their decision
in the middle
of any other serious treatment.
'We love
how this heart surgery is going,
just popping in to say it's done.
Yeah, it's done now.
Hit the showers, everyone, great job,
don't bother closing anything up,
that's not 'medically necessary'.
And debate over coverage between
insurance and health care providers
can get incredibly adversarial.
A reviewer for Anthem at one point
had an average denial rate of 92%
when it came to doctors' requests
for coverage.
According to one of Anthem's
medical directors at the time,
there was a good reason
their system operated that way.
Doctors will spin
the clinical information.
They will make things appear
more serious than, perhaps, they are,
because they feel the patient needs
this level of care for a little longer.
You do have
a somewhat adversarial relationship
between the reviewer
and the attending physician.
- Was that best for the patient?
- It's like our legal system.
Each side, does a good job
in presenting their case
and asking the right questions,
you ultimately arrive at the truth.
'Cause if there's one thing we know
about the American legal system,
it's that it always
arrives at the truth.
It's why the Innocence Project
is mostly two guys in an empty office
getting really good at ping pong.
There's simply nothing else
for them to do.
I know treating critical health care
as something doctors have to 'win'
may seem dangerous, but that man
will have you know, it isn't!
I cannot think of a situation
where a decision was made
to discharge a patient from a hospital
and some terrible consequence
occurred soon thereafter.
- I'm sure it happens, but?
- We found quite a few.
I'd have to look at them to see.
There's one that occurs to me
that I was involved with,
where the child left the hospital
with his parents,
escaped from his parents,
drove cross country to another state,
and days later,
committed suicide.
Keeping that individual
in the hospital longer
is not likely
to have made any difference.
I would have to imagine
that the parents would say,
if you'd kept him in the hospital,
he wouldn't have been
in another state killing himself.
Holy shit! Do you think
that guy went into that interview
knowing he was about to be murdered
by Scott Pelley on network TV?
Do you think he was getting ready
in the morning, and thought,
'I've got that interview
with CBS News' Scott Pelley tonight,
I wonder if he's gonna take
my stupidest soundbite
and feed it back to me
right through my fucking teeth?'
Was he driving
to that interview thinking,
"I wonder if any of the camera crew
will step in as beloved,
Peabody-Award-winning
newsman Scott Pelley
runs me across the floor
like a Swiffer mop,
or will they just stand by
as my lifeless body is deservedly
whipped back and forth?'
And if you're wondering how insurers
can get away with that sort of thinking
it's partly because the government
has, to this point,
done shockingly little when it comes
to enforcing parity laws.
Multiple federal and state agencies
have responsibility for this,
but the truth is,
they rarely penalize plans.
The Labor Department,
which oversees most workplace plans,
closed just 74 investigations last year
finding violations in only 12.
As for state-level enforcement,
a study found that they've levied fines
just 13 times since 2017,
which is absolutely pathetic.
And it is not just private insurers
that are a nightmare here.
Community mental health clinics,
which often serve low-income patients,
are suffering as well,
because the reimbursement rates
for public insurance,
like Medicare and Medicaid,
are also woefully insufficient.
Basically, from top to bottom, we
underpay mental health professionals,
many of whom do difficult,
high burnout work.
It is no wonder so many
opt out of the system.
One study found that patients
are more than five times
as likely to have to use out-of-network
providers for behavioral care,
than for other medical services.
Just listen to these two counselors
who spoke anonymously to local news
about their concerns
over what all this might mean.
The counselors say insurers
take 90 days to pay them
and the payments are so low,
fewer mental health providers
are taking insurance.
We will face a crisis
where people are only able
to get services
if they can pay out of pocket.
Both therapists
wanted us to conceal their identities
out of concern
for patient privacy
and because they still have to work
with insurance companies.
So as providers,
some people think,
"We're just for the money
or we don't care."
No, we care. We care a lot.
But these companies
are also driving us into the ground
and we can't,
this is not sustainable.
Yeah, of course, it isn't!
Therapists are in a
no-win situation here.
And for what it's worth,
it is just not a great sign
that insurance companies
are now so powerful
that mental health providers
feel they have to go on the news
like they're in witness protection
after seeing someone get whacked.
And the thing is, some out-of-network
therapists can make a lot of money,
if they live in an area with patients
that can afford to pay out of pocket.
But for the many who don't,
they are stuck taking whatever
insurance companies are willing to pay,
which helps explain why psychiatry
was ranked one of the lowest
in compensation
among 29 medical specialties.
And it's not just doctors,
counselors and social workers
with masters' degrees
earn 33 to 45 percent less
than other health professionals
with a comparable education.
And as bad as our situation
is right now, it's getting worse.
One survey in Massachusetts
said that for every 10 clinicians
entering work in mental health
clinics there, 13 leave.
And if we continue at that rate,
one day, we're going to wind up
with negative therapists,
which I'm pretty sure
is what you call anyone
who responds to your serious
mental health issues with,
"Interesting, I can't wait
to get into my jammies later."
And the costs of leaving mental health
untreated can be massive,
not just for those needing it,
but for all of us.
Mental health problems
are a big driver of homelessness,
and also force people into contact
with the criminal justice system.
In fact, it is often said
that correctional facilities
have become the largest providers
of mental health care services in US.
We've gone from warehousing
people with mental illness
in buildings that felt like prisons,
to warehousing them
in actual prisons instead.
It's very much the "new look, same
great taste" of America's failures.
So, how do we fix all of this?
This is clearly an absurd way
to operate a health care system.
And for the umpteenth time,
I would argue single-payer health care
is the way to go.
Unfortunately, we can't get that,
because it's very high up on a shelf.
I don't know who left it there,
but they must've been tall,
because it's way too high to reach.
And if you're thinking,
"Why not use a ladder?"
The ladder's also on the shelf.
It's a really frustrating situation.
But in the absence of that,
we need to both recruit
more mental health care professionals,
and make sure
that insurers cover them properly.
On the first point,
the Biden administration,
to its credit,
announced a plan back in March
that'd provide "$100 billion
in mandatory funding over 10 years"
to completely transform
our current system,
which includes investing
700 million in programs to cover
everything from training
to scholarships and loan repayments
for those committed
to working in underserved areas.
But obviously,
that's only half the battle.
On the insurance company side,
we badly need to be strengthening
and enforcing those mental health
parity laws,
at both the state
and the federal level.
California has put in one of the most
comprehensive parity laws in US.
Among many, many other things,
it requires that insurers must base
"medical necessity determinations
on current generally accepted
standards of mental health care",
instead of just making up
the criteria for themselves.
That is a very big deal,
and more states should be
following California's lead.
In the past, so much of the problem
was that people would not ask for help.
Thankfully that's now less of an issue,
thanks to, among other things.
the tireless gland-shaming
of Mr. Harrison Ford.
But now,
when people do reach out for help,
we're just not in a position
to give it to them.
If we want to be a society that truly
respects and values mental health,
we have to respect
and value mental health care.
And that means supporting
the people who deliver it.
It's going to take a lot of investment
and continued resolve to fix things,
but it's also absolutely worth it.
Because it just cannot be the case
that when people ask for help,
our only option is to tell them
to suck it up, Buttercup.
And now, this!
And Now:
The World's Horniest Televangelist.
Everywhere I go, I have people
just stroke their Bible, kiss it.
Then I say,
"Rub it over your face."
I'm Mike Murdock,
a follower of Jesus.
I like sexual beauty. Really like that.
I look at a woman's ankles,
I look at her toenails,
I look at her fingernails.
I don't know why cutoffs are sexy,
but they are.
I like short shorts.
I don't like long shorts.
I want to see everything I can.
I'm a man.
You think when I think of marriage
I'm thinking of black-eyed peas,
pork and beans, fried corn,
and glass of iced tea?
That's marriage. Are you kidding?
I want a sexpot stripping on the stage
in front of me in the bedroom.
If her nipples are ugly,
she'll cover those up.
But she wants you
to see the mounds
because men see mounds
and they start thinking.
"31 Secrets
of an Unforgettable Woman."
Unbelievable book.
I started crying when I started
reading this book that I was writing.
Thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week. Good night!
In December, I'll be in Beijing,
opening up new pork markets!
Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.