Congressman Troy Carter: Pulling the Plug on Hope: Cutting Mental Health Care While the Crisis Grows

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Congressman Troy A. Carter, Sr. (D-LA) released the following statement:

"This is perhaps one of the most egregious acts yet.

"At a moment when our nation is already facing a sharp rise in mental illness, addiction, and suicide, the Trump administration has chosen to pull the rug out from under the very programs keeping people alive. These are not abstract dollars on a spreadsheet. These are counselors, crisis lines, school programs, recovery coaches, and overdose-prevention teams that work every day in our neighborhoods.

"In response, I joined with more than 100 Democrats and Republicans to lead a bipartisan letter to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., urging him to immediately reverse these reckless actions and restore the funding that communities across America depend on. This was not a partisan exercise. It was a moral one. When lives are on the line, silence is not an option.

"In Louisiana, this decision will be felt immediately and painfully.

"Louisiana already ranks near the bottom nationally in access to mental-health care. Many of our parishes have no psychiatrist at all. Rural communities rely almost entirely on federal grants to keep clinics open, to staff mobile crisis units, and to distribute naloxone, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses.

"When these grants are terminated overnight, here is what that means in real terms:

"• A young person in St. Bernard Parish experiencing severe depression may no longer have a school-based counselor to turn to.

• A veteran in Jefferson Parish struggling with PTSD may lose access to a local treatment program.

• A mother in New Orleans East battling addiction may no longer find a recovery center with open doors.

• First responders may arrive at overdose scenes without the tools that save lives.

"This is not about politics. It is about common sense.

"You do not respond to a mental-health crisis by cutting mental-health care.

You do not respond to an overdose epidemic by eliminating overdose-prevention programs.

And you do not claim to support families while dismantling the safety net that protects them.

"Even more troubling, these cuts come after deep reductions to Medicaid, which many Louisiana providers depend on to survive. Taken together, this is not trimming waste. It is breaking the system.

"When funding disappears overnight, programs shut down overnight. When programs shut down, people fall through the cracks. And when people fall through the cracks, lives are lost.

"Louisiana families are resilient, but resilience is not a substitute for responsibility. Government has a duty to protect its people, especially the most vulnerable among us. Pulling lifesaving support in the middle of a growing mental-health crisis is reckless, cruel, and short-sighted.

"I will fight this grave injustice with every fiber of my being.

This is not leadership.

This is abandonment."

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