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accessHealthNews.net
May 2025
Volume 11 | Issue No. 96
Mary Beth Taranow, a retired operating room nurse
The slogans are everywhere: "Protect your
peace," "Prioritize your mental health,"
and "It's okay to not be okay." They're
printed on T-shirts, captioned in Instagram
posts, and featured in self-care marketing
campaigns. But for millions of people
across the United States—especially in
Missouri and Kansas—those messages
now feel like hollow suggestions in a reality
where the actual support systems are
vanishing.
As social and political tensions escalate
across the country, the ability to access
meaningful behavioral health care is
simultaneously being dismantled.
While national conversations continue
around trauma, stress, and burnout,
federal leadership is proposing historic
budget cuts to the very programs
designed to address those exact issues.
In March 2025, Health and Human
Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
announced the closure of the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA), folding it into
a new umbrella agency called the
Administration for a Healthy America
(AHA). Framed as a streamlining effort,
the move also absorbed other key public
health offices—including the Health
Resources and Services Administration
(HRSA) and the Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Health. But many in the field
say the reorganization weakens behavioral
health infrastructure at a time when the
need is growing.
Programs once tailored for crisis response,
early intervention, and marginalized
populations are now at risk of being
diluted—or disappearing entirely.
READ MORE
"If our lives are consumed with everyday conversations about
politics where there's lots of polarization, we're going to be
really unhappy folks every day."
- Bart Andrews, Ph.D.,
Chief Clinical Officer at Behavioral Health Response
