RONALD REAGAN’S POLICIES PUT THE MENTALLY ILL IN JAILS AND ON THE STREETS, SO SARAH PALIN USED HER “COMMON SENSE” AND MADE HIM HER HEALTH CARE HERO

She Who Quits's ghost writer wrote this In an op-ed for the WSJ:

Some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that "no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds.

You would quote Ronald Reagan on health care? You mean Ronald Reagan's death policy for the mentally ill? He emptied the mental hospitals and closed some of them down. The mentally ill now fill the prisons and live on the streets. The prisons in this country have poor to no health care. For example the Alaskan prisons which lie to the public about providing adequate health care and are quite brutal to the mentally ill. Living on the streets is dangerous to begin with, poor nutrition, inability to get enough sleep, exposure to those who would prey upon the vulnerable, and difficulty getting health care needs met are all factors which contribute to low quality of life and death. I believe taking mentally ill people and putting them in situations where they are traumatized repeatedly has caused many to commit crimes they would have never done if in a better environment. How can you quote a man on health care who would treat the most vulnerable among us like throwaways?

There was a reason those people were in mental health facilities, they could not function in society and they needed a safe place to live. I worked in a state hospital in Washington in the 1980s when Reagan‘s policies were being implemented. Later president Reagan would cut aid for federally-funded community mental health programs. Then Ted Kennedy and others wrote the community mental health systems act in an attempt to protect the mentally ill and Reagan blocked it. Oh, by the way Sarah a lot of them were developmentally disabled like your "son" Trig. Ronald Reagan is the main reason we have so much widespread homelessness and increased crime. These same kinds of policies have been played out in Alaska to the point of 12 dead homeless people in Anchorage Alaska this summer.

Alexander R. Thomas, Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology Northeastern University had this to say about Reagan's policies designed to remove assistance from the mentally ill, "The shifts in such policies were not the result of overt attempts at change, but rather part of an overall effort to realign the political economy to be more profitable for business." tp://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html.

Ronald Reagan also said, “Don't be afraid to see what you see.” I see the insurance industry handing you your op-ed already written. Why? Well, I just used used that common sense your ghostwriter was talking about.