The federal system "is more interested in protecting people's rights to be sick than their rights to be well," Rep. Tim Murphy, who has been working to push comprehensive mental health legislation for the past three years, said Friday in response to the massacre at an Oregon community college.
"It gets pushed aside," the Pennsylvania Republican told
CNN's "New Day" program. "And they say, let's look at this in another week, another month, another year, and in the three years I've been working on this, hundreds of thousands of deaths from suicides, drug overdoses, homicides, the slow motion death of all have occurred."
Minorities and the poor also face more discrimination, said Murphy, and "we have a criminal justice system more interested in putting people in prison than giving them hospital beds. We don't have enough providers or places for care."
Also, he said, billions of dollars are wasted while officials "refuse to even acknowledge that schizophrenia and bipolar illness exists," Murphy said.
But next week, when Congress returns to session, there will probably be "another moment of silence... I think Americans will be sitting there extremely frustrated saying we don't need silence. We need action."
He urged Americans who want to change the situation to write their leaders or call and demand that the
Helping Families and Mental Health Crisis Act, or HR 2646, which he introduced this summer, be moved and passed.
"Once again Congress will say, you know, we've got other priorities to work on," said Murphy, "and again, I put blame on both sides of the aisle."
He insisted that his legislation won't take away people's rights to privacy, but at the same time, "when you have federal laws that are set up that actually prevent families from helping and then blame families for not helping, that is perverse. When you have federal laws that say family members can't know when someone has an illness, when you have colleges that are more worried about being sued than notifying family members when there is a problem."
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