Advocacy E-News August 6, 2018
August 6, 2018
NEW JERSEY’S PROHIBITS SHORT-TERM LIMITED DURATION INSURANCE
Department of Banking and Insurance Acting Commissioner Marlene Caride recently notified the federal government that the sale of Short-Term, Limited Duration Insurance is prohibited in New Jersey’s individual market and warned that permitting the sale of these plans elsewhere in the country would cause harm to the nation’s health insurance market and to consumers. These Plans often have fine print that allows them to charge people with mental illness more or says they do not cover pre-existing conditions like mental illness or provide essential health benefits, including mental health and substance use care.
See the Department of Banking and Insurance Press Release
NEW JERSEY HALTS ADMISSIONS FOR TROUBLED GROUP HOME COMPANY
Concerns over Bellwether’s treatment of clients has lead state agencies in New York, Maryland, Delaware, and Florida to cut ties with Bellwether facilities. But New Jersey’s Division of Developmental Disabilities continued to defend the company, which has a reputation of taking clients other group homes turn away. Bellwether has 62 licenses across the state and serves over 450 New Jerseyans.
Branchburg police report their officers are at Bellwether facilities three to four times a day, as back-up for under-staffing in the homes. One Bellwether day center in Branchburg had 156 emergency squad visits in the last two years alone. Seven of them were for incidents where a staff member had allegedly assaulted a client.
JERSEY CITY AFFORDABLE HOUSING WAIT LIST REOPENING AUG. 6
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and the Jersey City Housing Authority (JCHA) have announced that the JCHA’s public housing program waitlist will open Monday, Aug. 6 and will remain open until Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018. People currently living outside of Jersey City may apply. The reopening of the waitlist will allow eligible low-income families to apply for affordable housing opportunities at the JCHA’s nine public housing sites including senior/disabled units at Curries Woods.
The waitlist is only available online at JerseyCityHA.myhousing.com.
HOW MENTAL ILLNESS STOPPED BEING “A TERRIBLE DARK SECRET.”
Nearly 30 years ago, the author William Styron outed himself in these pages as mentally ill. “My days were pervaded by a gray drizzle of unrelenting horror,” he wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed article, describing the deep depression that had landed him in the psych ward. Mr. Styron discovered that he could use his fame and storytelling genius to bring people back from the brink of death. And he could give family members the language they needed to forgive, love and empathize.
FIND YOUR LOCAL NAMI
