Instructions  

Discuss how social visibility and financial cost impact healthcare policy

SOLUTION  

Social Visibility of Health Issue

Mental health disorders have gained a lot of visibility in the news with the recent mass shooting. Mass shootings create outpourings of public horror and outrage. With each tragedy, we hear arguments about gun violence and mental health. On December 14, 2012, 26 people were shot and killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Investigators reported the assailant, a 20-year-old male, had a history of psychiatric disorders like anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder that was untreated (Cowan, 2014). It was also reported the killer was suffering from undiagnosed anorexia that may have affected his mental state. Following this shooting, President Barack Obama signed an executive order on gun control December 2016.

The executive order restricted gun ownership for Social Security beneficiaries with psychiatric disabilities, who used a “representative payee” to deal with their finances (The White House, 2016). The assumption behind the regulation was that if someone was too mentally ill to handle their disability payments, then they shouldn’t be eligible to buy guns. However, on February 28, 2017, President Trump signed a bill passed by Congress, House Joint Resolution 40, that rescinded the order stating, “it could endanger the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens” (GovTrack, n.d.).

That same year in October a gunman in Las Vegas, Nevada unleashed a shower of bullets on an outdoor country music festival, killing at least 59 people and injuring 527 (At least 59 dead, 527 injured in a mass shooting on Las Vegas Strip, 2017). This was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The 64-year-old male was believed to be suffering from the untreated bipolar disorder. It was also reported the gunman was taking Diazepam for anxiety.….please click the purchase button below to access the entire solution at $10