�������ýҕ�l

President Joe Biden’s new plan to expand mental health and drug abuse treatment would pour hundreds of millions of dollars into suicide prevention, mental health services for youth, and community clinics providing 24/7 access to people in crisis. Unveiled as part of his State of the Union speech, Biden’s plan seeks to shrink America’s chronic gap in care between diseases of the body and those of the mind. Health insurance plans would have to cover three mental health visits a year at no added cost to patients. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/3)

On Tuesday, the White House also released a fact sheet that lays out details of the administration's strategy. It seeks to address a mental health crisis that has been years in the making but was only worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan focuses on ways to strengthen system capacity and connect people who need help to a continuum of care. It includes measures to expand the mental health care workforce, efforts to establish a crisis-care response system to support the launch of the 988 crisis line in July, a focus on children's mental health and proposals to push insurance companies to improve their coverage of behavioral health care. (Chatterjee and Wroth, 3/2)

The Biden administration announced Wednesday a nationwide tour to address mental health challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, another sign the U.S. may have reached what the president said in his his State of the Union Address “a new moment in the fight against COVID-19.” The “National Tour to Strengthen Mental Health,” led by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, aims to hear directly from Americans about the behavioral health challenges they’re facing and engage with local leaders to strengthen services. (Rodriguez, 3/2)

State attorneys general have launched a nationwide investigation into TikTok and its possible harmful effects on young users’ mental health, widening government scrutiny of the wildly popular video platform. The investigation was announced Wednesday by a number of states led by California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont. (Gordon, 3/3)

Rates of anxiety and depression rose by about 25% worldwide in the first year of Covid-19, another indication of the widespread harm on mental health inflicted by the pandemic. Young people were at the greatest increased risk of suicide and self-harm, and women bore the brunt of the emotional and psychological burden, according to a report from the World Health Organization. People with chronic conditions such as asthma or cancer were also more likely to develop symptoms of mental disorders during the outbreak. (Gretler, 3/2)

In July, there will be a new universal phone number — 9-8-8 — for people across the United States to call when they or someone around them experiences a mental health crisis. The idea is that it’s short, easy to remember and the same everywhere. Right now, most everyone knows to call 9-1-1 in an emergency. But law enforcement and emergency responders are not always equipped to help someone who is in mental health distress or having a psychotic episode or thinking about suicide. (Knopf, 3/3)

A legislative panel Wednesday approved a plan to expand mental health services in Georgia. House Bill 1013 would require insurance companies to cover mental health care the same way they cover physical health, establish state grants for outpatient treatment and take other steps to improve care. House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, called it “just the beginning of what I expect will be a multiyear conversation” about mental health. “This is not a partisan issue,” Ralston told the House Health and Human Services Committee, which approved the measure. “This is not a geographic issue. This is not an income issue.” (Wickert, 3/2)

"I think it’s the most important [topic] we will take up this year.” With that remark, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, in a rare appearance at a legislative committee hearing, set out the stakes Wednesday for passage of the mental health parity bill that he has sponsored. “The No. 1 state for business in this nation cannot and will not be among the worst for mental health care and access and quality,’’ said Ralston, a Blue Ridge Republican. Later, the House Health and Human Services Committee, meeting for the third time on the proposal, passed House Bill 1013 unanimously. (Miller, 3/2)

Bipartisan support is mounting for legislation that would add an unusual new tool to combat the state's mental health crisis by seeking to legalize research of psychedelic substances. The bill, authored by Rep. Daniel Pae, R-Lawton, would allow for the state's universities and research institutions to begin studying psilocybin and psilocin, the chemicals in "magic mushrooms" that produce a psychedelic state. It is an attempt to build on and become involved in ongoing research that has shown positive results in psychedelics helping with mental health issues ranging from addiction to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (Gore, 3/2)