President-elect Donald Trump has proposed institutionalizing people with mental illness and increasing federal support for faith-based counseling as part of his mental health policy proposals.
Mr. Trump offered scant proposals on mental health during his campaign.
In his first term, Mr. Trump signed executive orders designed to address mental healthcare for veterans and signed bills into law to provide new funding for opioid use disorder and mental health treatment.
Here are six things to know about Mr. Trump's record on mental health:
- Mr. Trump has proposed institutionalizing unhoused people with mental illness. In a video posted on his campaign website in April 2023, Mr. Trump said his administration would ban urban camping wherever possible, and get people with substance use disorder and common mental health conditions into treatment.
The president-elect proposed sheltering unhoused people in "large parcels of inexpensive land" and bringing in psychiatrists, social workers and drug rehab specialists to treat individuals.
"And for those who are severely mentally ill and deeply disturbed, we will bring them back to mental institutions, where they belong, with the goal of reintegrating them back into society once they are well enough to manage," Mr. Trump said. - The president-elect also proposed increasing federal support for faith-based counseling, treatment and recovery programs for substance use disorders. In a statement published in April 2023, Mr. Trump said he would create new public-private partnerships for companies to provide job training to individuals with substance use disorders.
- In 2020 while serving as president, Mr. Trump signed the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act, which designated 988 as the universal number for the national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline.
- Mr. Trump signed the CARES Act in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The law included $425 million for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The CARES Act also expanded Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics and allowed the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand mental health services via telehealth.
- In 2018, Mr. Trump signed the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, designed to expand access to opioid use disorder treatment. The bill expanded the types of providers permitted to prescribe medication-assisted opioid treatment, required Medicaid programs to cover medication-assisted treatment and provided funding for recovery programs. The bill passed with broad bipartisan support.
- In his first term, Mr. Trump signed two executive orders related to veterans' mental health. The first directed the VA, the Defense Department, and the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate access to mental healthcare and suicide prevention for veterans. And in 2019, Mr. Trump ordered the establishment of the Veteran Wellness, Empowerment and Suicide Prevention Task Force.
Read more about Mr. Trump's healthcare record here.