As a Wyoming State Senator in 1991, Lisa Kinney complained that rural health was ignored by the Senate Education and Health Committee during a meeting in Cheyenne. Senator Kinney called for the committee “to focus on rural community health issues prior to the upcoming budget session” (Laramie Daily Boomerang 10/10/1991). The article continued, stating that “In response to her call, the bipartisan legislative committee voted to ask the Legislative Management Council for two full meeting days for the entire interim committee to meet and hold hearings on rural health care topics.”  Indeed, the Health Committee of both parties worked together to resolve issues facing Wyoming.

Previously, Senator Kinney sponsored and passed a bill allowing optometrists to prescribe medication. Dr. Sue Lowe, Laramie optometrist, asked her to sponsor this legislation to allow optometrists to provide cost-effective, essential, and accurate treatments for patients. Prior to Senator Kinney’s bill, if a patient saw an optometrist and needed medication, the patient had to get a second appointment with a family doctor for the prescription. “Passing my bill served rural patients because the optometrist could prescribe the medication immediately without the patient seeing a second doctor,” Kinney stated. “I will continue and am determined to help resolve rural health care issues when I am elected to the US House,” Kinney concluded.

There is a mental health crisis in the United States. When I think about this, I think of my brother Wayne – a genius, an extraordinary pianist, humorous, and the kindest person I have known. At age 17, he took acid and never came back. He spent years being homeless in San Francisco and only when he found himself in a mental hospital with proper medication and counseling, he was able to come home. He died at age 42. Since then, my mother, Dr. Phyllis Kinney and I have written books about drugs and legal rights of individuals with mental illness through National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and Wyoming Alliance of Mental Illness (WYAMI). We need to create and provide funding to take better care of our families.

Some of the cuts made recently were to the “Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) where half of its workforce was reduced through layoffs. Along with these cuts, most youth mental health staff at the Center for Mental Health Services were let go; early discretionary budgets were slashed nearly $1.1 billion by Elon Musk and DOGE from SAMHSA and billions from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

More than 1 billion people worldwide live with a mental health condition. One in seven young people. Despite these alarming numbers, the public health response is woefully inadequate. In the words of Dr Tedros, WHO Director General, “Mental health remains one of the most neglected areas of public health and health services delivery”. Indeed, the WHO report World Mental Health Today, published in September, paints a sobering picture with rising incidence rates, persistent service gaps, and a glaring neglect of youth-specific mental health needs.  The following article in the Lancet from November 2025 explains it more:  Mental health: a public health crisis unfolding

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(25)00261-0/fulltext

I will work to bring back funding for these important programs. I urge you to do your own research, as well. Mental and physical health should be treated equally for everyone.