Congressman Dan Goldman at the Greenberger Center for Social and Criminal Justice in New York City on Thursday, January 19, 2023.
Photo courtesy of Congressman Goldman’s desk.
A little over a year since Michelle Alyssa Gue was tragically pushed to her death by a mentally ill man in a Times Square subway station, Rep. Dan Goldman (NY 10) has said he plans to introduce legislation that would expand access to psychiatric care.
Goldman announced Thursday that he will introduce the bill, called the Michelle Alyssa Gu Law, at the Greenberger Center for Social and Criminal Justice in Manhattan. The bill is currently being finalized.
The Michelle Alyssa Go Act aims to exclude Medicaid, better known as the Mental Illness Foundation, which prohibits Medicaid from covering extended-stay stays for patients ages 21 to 64 who are receiving mental health or substance abuse treatment in a facility with more than 16 beds. The bill would eliminate this exclusion and incentivize mental health care institutions to make room for people with severe mental illness.
He was joined by Congressman Jerry Nadler, Assemblywoman Grace Lee (D-65), representatives from the New York City National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Treatment Advocacy Center, and Council members Eric Butcher, Carolina Rivera, and Keith Powers.
Former Congresswoman Caroline Maloney was also present at Thursday’s announcement. I introduced the bill in the last Congress. Goldman will present it at this session.
“What this bill will do is allow mental health facilities to offset Medicaid if they have more than 16 dedicated mental health beds,” Goldman said. “By doing this, we increase the services that are really needed.”
The bill would remove the age limit for Medicaid, so that IMD patients between the ages of 22 and 64 would be eligible for Medicaid reimbursement. It would also allow any institution to qualify as an IMD, regardless of the number of beds, as long as the institution primarily treats people with mental illnesses and meets national standards set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness in New York City and the Treatment Advocacy Center are calling for passage of the Michelle Alyssa Goo Act.
Kimberly Blair, director of policy at NAMI-NYC, called IMD’s exclusion “arbitrary” while Brian Stettin, director of policy at the Center for Treatment Advocacy, recently cited an “alarming shortage” of inpatient psychiatric beds and community-based residential treatment facilities.
“The horrific murder of Michel Guo would have been preventable,” said Councilman Butcher, whose Times Square neighborhood is home to. So do the countless Americans with untreated mental illness. It is inconceivable that current federal law prohibits Medicaid from covering most impatient psychiatric services.”
The exclusion has been in effect since Medicaid was founded in 1965 and is a barrier for people like Martial Simon, the man who killed Go, from being able to access care. Simon was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been in and out of the city’s shelter system for two decades, his family said. Most homeless New Yorkers lack the money to cover these services out of pocket, Goldman said.
“The man had previously sought psychiatric treatment, but was turned away because there was no family available for him,” Goldman said. “This legislation is an important part of addressing the mental health crisis we are going through that has only grown more serious since the COVID pandemic.”
