May is Mental Health Awareness Month, but instead of expanding access to care during a worsening mental health and addiction crisis, Donald Trump and Republicans are ripping it away from people who need it. Republicans have launched an all-out assault on American health care, gutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Their cuts are forcing therapists to shut their doors, pushing hospitals and treatment centers to the brink, eliminating support for harm reduction and overdose prevention programs, and making it harder for people in crisis to get life-saving care before it’s too late. Rural communities, low-income Americans, and people of color will be hit hardest.

People struggling with depression, anxiety, addiction, and serious mental illness will lose access to therapy, medications, crisis services, and treatment programs, while families searching for help for loved ones will face longer waitlists, fewer providers, and skyrocketing costs. This is the reality of the Republican war on health care. Preventable suffering, preventable deaths, and Americans abandoned in moments of crisis, all so Trump and Republicans can funnel massive tax breaks to billionaires and corporate donors. At a moment when overdose deaths, suicide, and untreated mental illness continue to devastate communities across the country, Republicans are choosing cruelty over care and billionaires over the American people.

By the Numbers

  • Republicans gutted nearly $1 trillion from the U.S.’s largest payer for mental health, Medicaid, to pay for tax breaks for billionaire donors and corporations.
  • Medicaid covers nearly a third of adults living with a serious mental health condition and half of all adults with opioid use disorder.
  • 55 mental health clinics, behavioral health facilities, and inpatient psychiatric units have been forced to shutter across the country since the GOP gutted Medicaid, cutting off communities from critical care.
  • An estimated 156,000 Americans will get cut off from opioid use disorder treatment, and overdose rates among them will double, leading to 1,000 additional fatal overdoses each year due to Republican cuts. 
  • Over a third of Americans struggling to access mental health care say their insurance wouldn’t cover it, yet the Trump administration is refusing to enforce a major regulation requiring plans that cover over 220 million Americans to cover mental health care.
  • Trump slashed billions of dollars in HHS, DOE, and DOJ funding for school-based mental health, violence prevention, and substance use disorder treatment.
  • RFK Jr. is stigmatizing and endangering access to the antidepressant medications that more than 260 million Americans rely on.

Republican Medicaid Cuts Are Fanning the Flames of America’s Youth Mental Health Crisis. The American Academy of Pediatrics declared youth mental health to be in a state of national emergency. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among those ages 10-24. Instead of funding mental health services for youth, Trump and Republicans in Congress are devastating them. Trump and Republicans gutted $1 trillion from the program that funds mental health care for 37 million children, nearly half the children in the U.S., in their “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” After the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that took 20 lives, President Biden passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which provided $1 billion in funding for schools to hire mental health workers and counselors. The Trump administration cut off the grants, leaving children and schools high and dry and forcing them to take the administration to court. During the Biden administration, the prevalence of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts amongst teenagers declined. Under Trump, that progress threatens to be reversed.

Rural America Is Getting Battered by Addiction — and Trump Is Leaving Them Behind. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death among Americans aged 18-44 and are battering rural America at higher rates than anywhere else in the country. Rather than helping Americans who are struggling with substance use disorders, Trump and Republicans cut $1 trillion from the program that ensures that half of all adults with opioid use disorder have access to treatment. Medicaid pays for over half of medication-assisted treatment, outpatient treatment, and peer support services for substance use disorder in the country. Analysis by the University of Pennsylvania estimates that GOP Medicaid cuts will cut 156,000 Americans off from opioid use disorder treatment, double overdose rates among the group, and lead to 1,000 additional fatalities each year. The Trump administration has also gutted over $330 million from federal overdose prevention programs, devastating access to lifesaving medication such as naloxone. To make matters worse, the Trump administration canceled the use and distribution of drug test strips, a move experts say will kill people. Organizations like the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition have seen their grants completely canceled. 

Republicans’ Red Tape Is Ripping Lifesaving Treatment Away From Americans Struggling With Mental Health Issues. The majority of people with mental health or substance use disorders who rely on Medicaid are covered through Medicaid expansion, a pathway that is being directly targeted by Republicans to throw Americans off their coverage in order to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. 59 percent of people on Medicaid with substance use disorder qualify through Medicaid expansion; 51 percent of people on Medicaid with mental health disorders qualify through Medicaid expansion. Now, millions of Americans struggling with debilitating mental health conditions will face mountains of paperwork designed to throw them off the health care they need to improve their condition and become employed. Republicans will say there are exemptions for “medical frailty” and “disabling” mental disorders, but since the bill does not define either, many Americans will be at the mercy of states empowered to cherry-pick who qualifies coverage. Mental health conditions such as depression and severe anxiety can greatly affect someone’s ability to maintain employment, yet Republican red tape will likely cut countless off from the health care they need to improve and maintain employment, leading to a spiral of declining mental health, lack of health care, and lack of financial security.

GOP Cuts Are Shuttering Mental Health Clinics and Substance Use Treatment Centers. All Americans will be impacted by GOP health care cuts, regardless of how they get their coverage or pay for any mental health treatment after Republicans cut $1 trillion from the nation’s number one payer of mental health services. While some providers, like Aurora Mental Health are having to lay off over 100 staff members, many other inpatient psychiatric units, eating disorder clinics, substance use treatment facilities, and therapy centers have been forced to close entirely:

  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Batesville
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Berryville
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Blytheville
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Brinkley
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Cherokee Village
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Clarksville
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Clinton
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Corning
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Heber Springs
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Helena
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Huntsville
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Lonoke
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Marianna
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Marshall
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Melbourne
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Morrilton
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Mountain View
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Newport
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Paragould
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Perryville
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Salem
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Siloam Springs
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Trumann
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Walnut Ridge
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Wynne
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Arisa Health – Yellville
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Comprehensive Autism Center
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Community Healthlink
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Children’s Mental Health Clinic
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics Clinic
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Hiram Davis Medical Center
  • CLOSURE ANNOUNCED: Barboursville School – In-Patient Psychiatric Treatment Facility for Children
  • WARD CLOSED: Mercy Hospital-Unity Campus – Inpatient Chemical Dependency 
  • WARD CLOSED: Fitzgibbon Hospital – Inpatient Behavioral Health Unit
  • WARD CLOSED: MetroHealth Cleveland Heights Medical Center – Psychiatric Emergency Department
  • WARD CLOSED: Aurora Medical Center – Inpatient Psychiatric Care Unit
  • FACILITY CLOSED: The Hope Institute at CUSD
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Montecatini Eating Disorder Treatment Center
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Azure Acres Recovery Center
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Options Behavioral Health
  • FACILITY CLOSED: CedarCreek Integrated Health
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Optum Healthcare Hoboken — Behavioral Health
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Carolina House
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Lovely Day ABA & Autism Analyst
  • FACILITY CLOSED: UPMC Western Behavioral Health – Narcotic Addiction Treatment Program
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Quality Autism Care
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Tellurian Detox Services
  • FACILITY CLOSED: Red Oak Counseling of Wisconsin
  • CUTS ANNOUNCED Aurora Mental Health and Recovery
  • CUTS ANNOUNCED Community Counseling of Bristol County, Inc.
  • CUTS ANNOUNCED Catholic Medical Center