This new Third Edition of Mental Health Services: A Public Health Perspective is being completed in the midst of public debate over President Obama’s health care reform proposals. Debate over health care is hardly new. The First Edition of this text was published in 1996, shortly after the rejection of President Clinton’s health care reform proposal. The Second Edition of this text was published in 2004, shortly after President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health had issued its fi nal report decrying the state of public mental health in the United States
