Comment Re:Maybe in another few decades... (Score 1) 20
The Newtown massacre was also a giant demonstration of our national failings in mental health. It could have been prevented were it not for all the barriers we build as a nation towards access to mental health treatment. Even worse, when the gun lobby had an opportunity to help turn this in to a discussion on mental health they instead upped the paranoia and now we have more unstable people running around armed instead of fewer. I stated from day one that the massacre was a problem with mental health and all that was said in response was "ZOMG! Obama's after YOUR guns!".
Maybe companies in the US are afraid of being "tainted" by taking part in such initiatives.
On this regard it is useful to remember that access to mental health resources is often regulated by the same bastards that control access to physical health resources - the insurance industry. Hence if you seek mental health assistance, your insurance company knows about it and it goes into your electronic medical records. While your employer isn't supposed to be able to discriminate against you based on that, your insurance provider is certainly entitled to do so and can raise your rates (through your employer) to the point where your employer has no choice but to fire you - after which point you no longer have access and the downward spiral begins again.
Mental health access should become a national right, completely decoupled from physical health access. Of course we'll never see that happen as the conservatives running the show will declare it a socialist/communist/fascist/whatever-other-inaccurate-ist "takeover" of the industry and it will die at that moment.