Mental Health Care Getting Scarcer. 55% Of U.S. Counties Have No Psych Professionals

For the mentally ill, finding treatment is only getting harder. "Last year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, almost 91 million adults lived in areas like here where shortages of mental-health professionals made obtaining treatment difficult. A departmental report to Congress earlier this year said 55% of the nation's 3,100 counties have no practicing psychiatrists, psychologists or social workers, a combination of budget cuts and doctors leaving the profession...Such shortages are expected to only grow now, as the federal health-care law goes into effect and allows more people to seek help." Gary Fields and Jennifer Corbett Dooren in The Wall Street Journal