Persuasive speech on mental illness

Oral Communication Formal Outline Sample Use this outline in order to properly craft the outline you will hand in to your instructor before you present your speech. -Book Chapter: 11 -Learning Goals: Communication, Creativity/Aesthetics Your Name COMM 101 Specific Purpose: To inform my audience of two controversial solutions to the problem with mental health care reform: an increase in the price of health insurance or institutionalization. Attention: This type of illness is all around us. One in five people in the U.S. is affected by it - maybe you, your mom, or your best friend. Yet it is one of the hardest problems to get proper treatment for. Can anyone guess what I am talking about? I am talking about mental illness - ranging from something as common as depression to substance abuse to psychoses. Credibility: As a student nurse who provides for mentally ill patients and who will soon be paying her own health insurance, I felt that an investigation on this topic was necessary. I will soon be a professional member of the health care team, and will be expected to make decisions concerning this matter. Hopefully, my research findings will help you make a choice when it comes times to vote in November. Preview: Tonight I am going to talk to you about two controversial solutions to the problem of mental health care reform: increased cost in health insurance to provide more aggressive care for the mentally ill, or leaving the problem the way it is – no increase in health insurance, resulting in more untreated mentally ill people ending up in institutions such as prisons, detention centers, and in some cases, the morgue.

Transition: It wouldn’t make much sense to explain solutions to you without giving you an overview of the problems that our society faces because of people with untreated mental illness. First Main Point: There are many U.S. citizens who are not receiving treatment for their mental health disorders.

A. According to a 1999 Surgeon General’s Report, the majority of people suffering a diagnosable mental health disorder are not receiving treatment of any kind. The report also states that at the current time, 28% of the U.S. population suffers from a mental or substance abuse disorder. 1. In any given year, 15% of the U.S. adult population uses mental health services. 2. The mental health problems we are discussing range from depression to schizophrenia. 3. To give you an idea of the scope of this problem, I will give you two examples. Mild depression can easily affect you, or someone you know, especially if they are under stress at school. Multiple personality disorder, a much more severe type of mental disability, can also go untreated. I don’t know if any of you remembers

the case of Kenneth Bianchi, the Hillside Strangler, who suffered from this disorder. He committed rapes and murders along the West Coast in the early 1980s.

Transition: By now, you have some idea of how prevalent mental disorders actually are, and the devastation that can result if they go untreated.

Second Main Point: Making more options and treatments available to the mentally ill will result in an increase in health insurance costs. It differs from state to state.

A. One solution is to have social workers from the nearest hospital or treatment center “check up” on the mentally ill patients after they have seen a doctor to make sure they are taking their medications and keeping medical appointments. 1. This may cause the cost of health insurance to go up as much as 10% or 15%. B. The other option is to allow people being treated for complications of a mental disorder to stay in the hospital for longer than a day or two, which is the current standard. 1. The drawback, once again, would be an increase in health insurance. If they stay for four or five days, the costs can run high.

2. In 1992, a study of Massachusetts’s hospitals concluded that it costs $407 a day to keep a person in a psychiatric unit.

Transition: I don’t know about you, but I believe health insurance is expensive already. Of course, there is another solution to the problem, but it is really no more appealing than the last one.

Third Main Point: Our other option is basically to let things go on as they are.

A. I have already given you the number of people who actually get treated each year: 15%. Is it worth us paying the extra on health insurance if these people aren’t going to bother to seek treatment?

1. If their mental illness is a more severe one, increasing the chance that they will commit a crime, they will get thrown in a detention center or in jail anyway.

2. On average, each run-in an officer has responding to any call regarding a mentally ill citizen costs us up to $150 per episode.

3. The opinion of the general public depends on current income and personal attitudes toward mental illness.

A. There is a large population of elderly citizens in Allegheny County. When asked for her opinion on a solution to this problem, my grandmother said, “I’m barely getting by on my pension. I can’t afford a rise in my health insurance. I’d just as soon have them thrown in jail.”

Transition: Given all this information, what do you think we are supposed to do?

Summary: There is not an easy solution to the problem of untreated mental illness. It often has tragic results for those people left untreated. Yet, to provide resources for the untreated would be an economic burden the rest of society would have to bear. Many politicians are now urging us to think about mental health care reform, but none have proposed any specific plans. Concluding Remarks: The question of whether or not to take action on this matter has already been decided. We know we must do something, but what? There are so many options out there,

we need to pick one that we think is best. People who suffer from these disorders are basically leaving their fate in our hands. It’s our money – where are we going to put it?

BIBLIOGRAPHY AIG: World Leaders in Insurance and Financial Services (1999, June 7). Longtime Mental Health Advocate Tipper Gore Takes Center Stage. [Online]. Available: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/199906/07/tipper.gore/. Allen, E. (2000, October 13). [Personal interview]. Bush, G.W. (2000, October 13). George W. Bush on Health Care Issues. [Online]. Available at: http://www…/issues.asp?bhjs=1&640&bhswi=610&bhshi=289&bhflver=4&bhdir=1&bhje [2000, October 13]. Goldstein, E.B. (1994). Psychology, 650. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1994. Gore, A. (2000, October 13). Al Gore on Health Care Issues. [Online]. Available at: http://election2000.aol.com [2000, October 13]. Health and Human Services Fact Sheet. (1999, December 13). Research and Evaluation. [Online]. Available at: http://www.mentalhealth.org/cmhs/communitysupport/research/toolkits/pn37ch4htm [1999, December 13].

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