A poll from Arlington, Va.-based National Alliance on Mental Illness found that most Americans strongly oppose recent federal cuts to behavioral health programs and want Congress to make mental health funding a priority.
The NAMI/lpsos poll was conducted Nov. 7-9, using lpsos’ probability-based KnowledgePanel. The nationally representative sample included 2,046 interviews from U.S. adults age 18 or older, with a margin of error of ±2.3 percentage points.
Here are seven findings:
- About 73% of respondents said they oppose eliminating federal jobs and programs tied to mental healthcare, opioid treatment, suicide prevention and the 988 Crisis Lifeline.
- Participants said cutting federal mental health roles could negatively affect community services (75%), school-based suicide prevention (76%), the 988 Lifeline’s capacity (79%) and mental health services for veterans (85%).
- Eighty-three percent of respondents said they support protecting federal Medicaid funding to help people access mental healthcare, although the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act would cut nearly $1 trillion from the program over the next decade.
- Nearly 2 in 3 Americans, or 64%, said Congress is not doing enough to address the country’s mental health needs, and the same percentage said the U.S. is spending too little on related resources.
- Sixty percent said federal funding for stable, affordable housing for people with mental illness should be a top priority.
- Seventeen percent of Americans rated their mental health as poor and 28% said the same about their stress levels. Respondents cited uncertainty about the future (80%), cost-of-living increases (78%), health concerns (64%) and caregiving responsibilities (32%) as contributing factors.
- Most said mental healthcare (63%) and suicide prevention programs (55%) should be high federal funding priorities. A majority also supported preserving current funding already approved by Congress.
