Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act - Details of The Bill

Details of The Bill

The Alaska Mental Health Bill's stated purpose was to "transfer from the Federal Government to the Territory of Alaska basic responsibility for the hospitalization, care and treatment of the mentally ill of Alaska." In connection with this goal, it aimed:

• to modernize procedures for such hospitalization (including commitment), care, and treatment and to authorize the Territory to modify or supersede such procedures;
• to assist in providing for the Territory necessary facilities for a comprehensive mental-health program in Alaska, including inpatient and outpatient facilities;
• to provide for a land grant to the Territory to assist in placing the program on a firm long-term basis; and
• to provide for a ten-year program, of grants-in-aid to the Territory to enable the Territory gradually to assume the full operating costs of the program.

The bill provided for a cash grant of $12.5 million (about $94 million at 2007 prices) to be disbursed to the Alaskan government in a number of phases, to fund the construction of mental health facilities in the territory. To meet the ongoing costs of the program, the bill transferred one million acres (4,000 km²) of federally-owned land in Alaska to the ownership of the proposed new Alaska Mental Health Trust as a grant-in-aid—the federal government owned about 99% of the land of Alaska at the time. The trust would then be able to use the assets of the transferred land (principally mineral and forestry rights) to obtain an ongoing revenue stream to fund the Alaskan mental health program. Similar provisions had applied in other US territories to support the provision of public facilities prior to the achievement of statehood.

In addition, the bill granted the Governor of Alaska authority to enter into reciprocal mental health treatment agreements with the governors of other states. Alaskans who became mentally ill in the lower 48 states would be properly treated locally until they could be returned to Alaska; likewise, citizens of the lower 48 who fell mentally ill in Alaska would receive care there, before being returned to their home states.

The bill was seen as entirely innocuous when it was introduced on January 16, 1956. It enjoyed bipartisan support, and on January 18 it was passed unanimously by the House of Representatives. It then fell to the Senate to consider the equivalent bill in the upper chamber, S. 2518, which was expected to have an equally untroubled passage following hearings scheduled to begin on February 20.