The Presidential election is over and I am thrilled that President Obama and Vice President Biden will stay in office. There are many reasons I voted for them but the largest reason is because of their views on health care for people living with a mental illness. I found an article that sealed my vote that was presented by The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention http://www.afsp.org/They said and I quote " The Election is over. Prior to the election, the National Council for Suicide Prevention sent out a survey to four presidential campaigns. Only one campaign responded, the other three did not. The response from the Obama campaign is linked here:http://www.afsp.org/files/Misc_/2012_Presidential_Candidate_Survey.pdf. When the other Candidates did not even answer the questions it speaks volumes on who has cared about the mentally ill and their health care and also what they propose to do in the future.
It cannot not stop here because there is so much work that still needs to be done. Write your Senators and Representatives often about the the importance of everyone having access to mental health care. Write The President yourself to keep our voice in the Government's ear. The National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI has a great site to keep you informed and tell you how to contact congress on important issues. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy and Actress Glenn Close do amazing work for awareness, research and support for people living with a mental illness. Please take some time and check out Representative Patrick Kennedy's work with mental illness at One Mind for Research and the work Actress Glenn Close does with hers at Bring Change 2 Mind. It is so important that we all work together on this issue no matter what Political Party you belong to. Mental illness does not discriminate and neither can we anymore.
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