“I want to help myself. It took jail and almost death to make me realize I have to push through it no matter how hard it gets. I have hope they will find me a place. I have faith that things will work out. I have to. I don’t have an option. I can’t give up again.”

– A 19 year-old Oklahoma girl with severe bipolar disorder who became homeless after her family’s insurance refused to cover the treatment she needed. She has been enrolled in an Oklahoma City-based mental health treatment program, but will likely live in a shelter for several weeks until the program’s housing becomes available. Although the Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to provide the same level of coverage for physical and mental ailments, advocates say that companies continue to disproportionately deny claims for mental health services (Source)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carly Putnam joined OK Policy in 2013. As Policy Director, she supervises policy research and strategy. She previously worked as an OK Policy intern, and she was OK Policy's health care policy analyst through July 2020. She graduated from the University of Tulsa in 2013. As a student, she was a participant in the National Education for Women (N.E.W.) Leadership Institute and interned with Planned Parenthood. Carly is a graduate of the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits Nonprofit Management Certification; the Oklahoma Developmental Disabilities Council’s Partners in Policymaking; The Mine, a social entrepreneurship fellowship in Tulsa; and Leadership Tulsa Class 62. She currently serves on the boards of Restore Hope Ministries and The Arc of Oklahoma. In her free time, she enjoys reading, cooking, and doing battle with her hundred year-old house.

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