But if you really want to pursue the sanatorium option, then do a quick calculation of the number of mentally ill and multiply that by the cost of instutionalizing a single patient. A quick search on the net comes up with an article that puts the numbers at 760,000 at $40,000 per day. That comes out to $30.4 billion a day. Now factor in that the numbers are inflated and round it down to $3.4 billion a day. That comes out to $1.2 trillion a year. Factor in the fiscal cliff and the reality becomes clearer.
And how much do you we spend every day in this country to incarcerate and run through the legal system those who are so dysfunctional that they end up in the system because they can't care for themselves?
We are probably spending close to that nationwide now. And while they are in jail they get little, if any treatment because your average county jail is not staffed and funded to provide it.
I would estimate 40% of the people in jails today are in need of some kind of mental health care which for the most part they aren't getting. If you figure an average cost of $80.00 per day just to house them and then add in the cost of the police manpower to arrest them, prosecutors, public defenders, court clerks, probation officers and all the other ancillary costs of running them through the system, I would bet the cost is just as staggering.
We need to decide what the proper role of government is. When we closed the mental hospitals and sanitariums we simply transferred transferred the cost from one department of government to another. And we endangered the public by doing so.