the sergeant. they get five of the people they wanted. and they want it badly and that's not the way it's going to work anymore. so, we write about it in the book and we tell lots of different stories of lots of different things and i think it's good to going to be very instructional and important to me. when i did feel i the people i think one of the reasons it was so successful is that it was largely instructional and even today when i speak so many people hold up the art of the deal as another book. so, this is one that probably not since the art of video i have to tell this had i worked so hard on a book and it was in a complaint of your code time we wanted to get it out really, really quickly so that it pertains to what's going on right now. the moments of time and we got it done, and david did a fantastic job.

and they helped me so much because we are doing a couple of things right now. >> is very nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? send an e-mail at booktv.org or post a comment on the wall facebook.com/booktv. now on "after words," former congressman patrick kennedy. he discusses living with mental illness and addiction. he is interviewed by congressman jim mcdermott washington state. >> good morning or good afternoon. i'm jim mcdermott here interviewing patrick kennedy. patrick has written the book you see on the screen. i have to tell you i have a

whole shelf of books written by politicians. yours is the only one that i've read front to back. i have to helped myself he could have written the history of the question or he could have written his own memoir. i would like you telling to join why you chose to write this book. >> guest: think you and it's great to be with you again. i loved serving with you in congress. you have been a huge champion of mental health in the congress for years, and it was great to work with you on the passage of the mental health parity. as you know, no one knows that this is the law of the land because when we passed the bill it was attached to the t.a.r.p. bill and no one cared if they should have at that point in 2008 but no one knew that the underlining though was this

mental healthcare and heat. so insurance companies could exploited the fact that no one knows about this and continue to exercise their discrimination against people who are looking for treatment in this space and who were denied because the onus is of the brain as opposed to another origin of the body so i want to get that message out there. but i know that another policy but as you point out is going to either sit on the shelf if anyone is lucky enough to order just to not get read. so obviously, i wanted it to be a compelling narrative and there has to be a certain sex appeal for people to dig through the book and read the whole book so i didn't want it just to be a walkie policy book. i knew that the real story is the one that i wanted to tell as the champion of mental health.

he indicates humor of mental health services but i didn't want anyone to know about because i was worried it would ruin my credibility as the champion of mental health. now go figure even while i'm trying to get mental health insurance which we had in the federal employee health benefits plan, i was trying to keep quiet the fact that i needed to go into the settings for my own treatment of addiction. so it was apparent to me but i have to tell my story coming at you can't make up the fact that our lives work out of the way they do. they are out of our control. and what ended up happening is it tracked very well might own struggles within my political struggle to pass the bill. and the irony that my late father ended up taking over for paul wellstone added to this

incredible aspect because i had a father-son relationship issue and he was also the generation that didn't be beat but these were real medical issues and and he saw them as a failing for the most part and yet here i was. i was a member of congress negotiating with him and pete domenici to get a better veil and of course the house that was better than the senate because it was more inclusive of all of the elements that so truly reflected the spirit of cary. so i thought what an interesting kind of narrative to educate people about the fact that there is a wall of the land. but to do it in the context of us being open about the fact that we are consumers because no one really wants anyone to know that they have a mental illness or addiction.

post-talk about the struggle of wanting anybody to know. what is that all about? we call it a stigma but tell me about that. >> guest: i write about how my mother had really debilitating alcoholism. everybody knew it. it was written returned up everywhere. for her age, she was as well known or more as betty ford is being an alcoholic. it was john kennedy, there was plenty written. and yet we kept it under wraps as if it was a big secret in our house to people people with coming to visit. my mom would walk through the house, absolutely debilitated from alcoholism. no one would look at her or talk to her. it's like the people that feel walked by in washington, d.c. we don't look at that we walk by and was the same thing except it was my mother. and so, i got that message.

you don't want anybody to talk about these issues. i was like everyone else i was frozen in place. i wanted to shut the door so there is no more embarrassment. that's how we all felt a group of shame we are outsiders looking at her and thinking god forbid anyone would say that. she has a physical illness but we felt ashamed around it. but it was real. i had had that same fear that my mom would be exposed even though everybody knew she was suffering as in oklahoma to. >> host: were too invisible of having problems when you were in the congress?

did you think folks didn't see it? guest co. you don't have the insight to your own and it's called denial and there's many forms, so i thought i was managing with my public knew about their own struggles in the way that i conducted myself. i thought i was keeping it a secret. the big moment for all of us that have these illnesses is that we are the last ones to know. everyone knows that doesn't say anything so that was true for me. i was convinced that no one could take upon the fact of sweaty palms and i was moving around in an agitated way. i totally thought that no one

knew. >> host: do you think that the impact -- you started seeing this when you were fairly young but patrick had some problems. use all these people. do you think there could have been an intervention at that point that could have preview up to be your self? >> host: i wanted something different for them for the medical system when they grow up because they will have a genetic risk because it runs in our family. we account for it and the need to include a mental health screening which in part will say what's your stay with your family history. okay we know this not only runs in your family. gallup's indoor family. we are going to make sure that we put you on this track. what is this track? i don't know but i know enough

to know. what is the reason we in the building strategies for coping mechanisms, the social emotional learning of skills that we can give to our kids and help them navigate. we are much more prone to good people into that space. it's to keep people from falling off. everybody knew i was drinking too much. but he's just being a teenager. we should just assume teenagers are going to be ms i think we should try to keep them from ending up going down that road. they were all kind of theories

about what was going on with you. someone would treat you this way and that way. how did that work out in your mind to link to one person and they said this and another one said that. how did the work you work that out in your own head? >> guest: there's a very convoluted system, there's no standards of care. there is no consistency and metrics to determine whether you are well or not and paste from the baseline that's true in the rest of the medicine but not mental health. i pointed out as a patient i got all kinds of advice of therapies and i had no clue is to sting me any good or is that giving me any good. in the future.

they hold the arts to what you do in a therapeutic setting. these things work for these populations of people just like we do with cancer. it's the system for what needs to happen. >> host: were you turning the corner or recognizing, tell me about how you turned the court for a lot of people watching this for people that have had some of the same problems you had. how do they get out of the rut

that he was in because he kept going down despite of everybody's therapeutic attempts the problem is when i went in with the christmas break because i figure i've got at least two and a half weeks where nobody's going to ask where i am. none of the constituents are going to think where is he at this town hall meeting at a holiday. so i checked myself in out in rochester and i told the administrators i am a congressman. i can't afford for you to send me down the hall to the mental health. that's where you need to go to. that's good that could be disrupted if anybody finds out,

i am done. so i want you to detox the campus from myopia addiction from my dependence on oxycontin. he said okay. so of course they detox me and take several good week and a half and i kind of went over during the day wanting to get some counseling that i wasn't really in it. i get some treatment. we know what works in recovery. it's the medical, the social and spiritual. so, i got the medical side of it i didn't get the social and spiritual aspects of recovery. so even though on my body side i was clean and my head wasn't aware it needed to be in five months later and five months later i was back in the jackpot so i would say that recognizing

the fact i hadn't done before treatment because after, i went back and i got -- i went to the mental health section finally. >> host: should doctors have been in control and said no you're not going to the mental units? >> guest: i didn't have the insight. all of us who are in the throes of illness do not have this insight. the stigma i guess is what you are dealing with when you went in was if it comes up anybody finds out.

>> host: did you know anybody that happened pax >> guest: i had the specter of scandal always looming over me. did you ever hear the story of thomas eagleton's problems? >> guest: i heard about them but obviously you witnessed them. >> host: i lived through it politically. having had electric shock treatment i was angry at that point is the presidential candidate would see what the issue was of the stigma. did anybody realize you made the

point committed utility that he or did you just say put me in the mental illness section. >> guest: i had to surrender and everyone knew i was in trouble and everyone was calling on me to re-sign but i had started to hit bottom. the gate was up. i have to go back to treatment and everybody knew what it was. >> host: do you have to hit bottom is when you understand, and i wonder -- >> guest: i don't think that's the case. i think we can raise the bottom. i had a lot at the bottom and i changed at the floor and hit new lows and that what we knew.

the abnormal becomes normal. >> host: let's talk about the idea of addiction and mental illness. what does it mean if you see i'm co- morbid say i'm co- morbid or what is co- marketed the? >> guest: we have an artificial distinction that you either have an addiction or you have a mental illness. when addiction and alcoholism is a form of mental illness. and often if you have an addiction or mental illness. it's a component of treatment for addiction and alcoholism, but the funding streams as you

obviously have mental health over here and addiction over here. they are in the recovery and addiction so that it works against the people who need to care for both that have these doing systems of care. >> in your own case do you feel that one was more a problematic but you had mental problems that either medicated with alcohol and with the drugs or? >> guest: the bottom line is who cares if it's the chicken or the egg. the bottom line is the quality of my life was disrupted. and it didn't matter whether it was because of the psychiatric issue or that i was

self-medicating or the fact i might have thrown the addiction to medication i ended up having a bigger problem with my mood. the bottom line is i had a problem and that's what we should focus on is how to get people into some stability. >> host: when did you decide or what led you to the decision i'm going to make my cause in congress getting mental health 30s so that people can get the treatment that your family has and you can get whatever you needed but that is true for most people so you took on the real issue and when did you decide to do that and what got you started in sort of exploring the number that was there and what wasn't their? >> i couldn't have imagined i would be the sponsor of the bill

my uncle spoke about of when he cited the original act of 1963 and that i would be connected to this amazing legacy that i was born with because of my last name. as i said, i grew up thinking i don't want anything to do with simple health stuff because i was ashamed to have it in my family and i knew we were supposed to keep quiet so the notion that it is a big outspoken leader of this is contrary to kind of how i was programmed so i don't know how it happened. it's a real miracle for me. i had a chance to do this because it does mean a lot to me to be part of this. i love working in this piece because i get to work with people that are like me that have been through the common

struggle and it is gratifying to connect with other people that feel they have that kind of marginalized, and i feel very proud that i was given this chance to kind of be part of this effort. i can't give you a specific example. >> when did you put the first bill in congress usurped for what, ten years -- >> guest: 16 years total. i was the cosponsor of parity in rhode island when i was a state legislature. so i was aware of it. in fact my colleague in the rhode island legislature was the primary sponsor. furthermore the chapter president of rhode island talk to me about it. so i was already a cosponsor.

it's like taking your agenda to the national level. but i couldn't believe that i ended up having this fiction of being the first name on the bill. i assume that's because the bill required equal coverage for mental illness and addiction that there would be tons of people that would wait in line and maybe i would be lucky to make them the than the top 100 because there's 435 members of congress. so honestly i can't begin to describe what it was that about me to be the sponsor. >> i was on the armed services committee. on the appropriations committee i served from the nih and the hhs subcommittee.

in a very direct way from the more appropriations from the national institute of mental health, alcoholism. so that was -- i was very proactive. in fact whenever we had a mental health addiction hearing, he would let me have the chair to conduct the hearing because as you know that jesse jackson does this, laura does this and patrick kennedy does mental health so again i don't know how that happened to just kind of happened. >> host: do you think they saw that you are on a mission were on a mission that you didn't know about? >> guest: a lot of people knew things about me that i didn't even know about myself. that's why there's so much business for your folks.

>> host: hell do you think that your mental health problems -- how did it affect your ability to operate in the congress? >> guest: let me make the distinction between mental health and mental illness. i think a lot of people get this confused. if you're in a place where your brain health is in a severity index where it's debilitating. whether you are at the network or need pharmacy benefits but they provided for the cancer patients.

that's where the insurance companies exploit that but then there's the other side which is mental health. so must people open to the mental health service. so suffice it to say i believed in and out of the sometimes less disabling so there isn't a clear narrative that i was in care all the time and as we talked about a level of denial about how much i was in care or not. >> host: how much denial was there that you are functioning very well when and people all around you could see that you were at the level that you sometimes were?

>> guest: i had a staff, really the best. i had a lot of great people applied to work for me. terrific chiefs of staff and an executive assistant and i had the longest kind of running staff as we now we have a high stanford over in all of our offices. i was blessed. i had a core group that stuck with me. my very first executive assistant from day number one when i left congress was there with me. brilliant, organized. she was incredible. they really helped me function and perform. >> host: they helped you by not saying anything or by covering up for things? >> guest: they definitely made

up. i was killing it as an appropriate or. i was on the appropriations committee and kept really on my congressional tenure. david was a good friend. i was really knocking out for my constituents announcing the appropriations everywhere in the district and people measure effectiveness as to what are they bringing home and on the scorched everybody knew it. i also had a fantastic constituent service. so no matter who the question was orbiter reputation was whatever you think of kennedy come he gets it done. speaking at the chamber of commerce and rolling their eyes,

whatever, they wanted to come to my office because they knew that i could deliver. so i would say there's a lot of people just like me in the business world who are functioning and do not know that they have a problem within a day have a problem but they are not fully aware that it may be affecting them in ways that they don't need to have an effect. >> as long as they can get by without having to come from the public situation they can keep coming. i was when some people are looking at you reading your book and say there is a guy with five years of sobriety is four and a half or five --

>> guest: february 22, 2015. and i sit next to a guy on the ways and means committee who have to wti -- dwi so it isn't that much of a problem. i haven't got the family and the resources and i don't have access so they dismiss. they don't have in place with everybody else. and even while imperfect, i'm here talking to them in spite of the illness it from the suicide

rates and the epidemic that we still refuse to address them, so this is rampant and part of the reasons it is rampant as we don't have the system in place to catch people comes around people, give them the support services into greater families into their care, give them the support of employment if they need it and the lack of stable housing. these are all things we need to iron out. i don't think it needs to be unique to me. i don't think that we can put in place a system of care that knows what to do with these illnesses and actually gets funded to do these things because the price of not doing

it is enormous human loss and suffering and also a loss of economic wherewithal in the country in a dramatic way. so i just think that it's time we figure out how you're going to address this epidemic. >> host: at how people deal with post-dramatic stress disorder and you were on the armed services committee. do you think that we separate ordinary citizens into mental illness and then go you do something different you see it being done differently for soldiers and marines or is it all one thing >> so, in the past the military culture like the va and wanted

to be cared for for among their peers and there is enormous value in that support so having a firefighter recover with another, there's certain advantages to that. but ultimately, it's the brain. we know the offices are in for treatment methodologies methodologies that need apply whether it is the self-insured company so most will do their care out of their care from the employer-sponsored health care because most of the folks that thought or in the guard and reserve so that's not what most people understand. they think it covers anybody that served the country and why i think the peabody is going to get implemented is i sit on the

board of the afghans of better into the air to because they will be the ones that kicked down the proverbial door just like they kick down doors in afghanistan. it doesn't apply much to the returning soldiers. but in a sense our soldiers can open the door for the rest of america and just like they were freedom fighters they are going to be freedom fighters in a new way and that is dear going to open up the product for a soldier on the battlefield when they see something inexplicable when it can also happen to a child grows up in an inner city that hears gunfire. that is, if we understand it can

affect an adult that has coping mechanisms, imagine what the trauma does for the child that has no way to assimilate what's happened to them so they are permanently scarred. i know a lot of the 12 step programs that it's shocking to me just how they affect people for their whole lives and debilitate for their whole lives so we need to get a handle on trauma not only for the soldiers but frankly for the rest of america. >> host: we have another funding stream that goes off

over here to the va and we have one going to mental health. in your own mind to you have how you would do it if you are still in were still in congress? >> guest: if i had a magic wand. well, first i created the kennedy for him to veto for him. i could've analyzed for the policy should look like. clearly it is all about the dollar. how do we reorganize the current spending to get more for the money that should appeal to the republican friends. it saves dollars on the physical health side where it saves dollars from the criminal justice system because all of the police officers are so busy doing what should be the purview of health the healthcare system in the social service system

rather than become the domain of the criminal justice system. they can provide a system up front than to wait in a reactive way for people to continue to be read hospitalized were recent debate in the criminal justice systems. we don't have the financial incentives to implement them. that's why i could social innovation bonds where it's like here is the target we are going to save money on from the jail system and we are going to save money on the education how are we going to do if we are going to employ this article and this article and we are going to likely take a mortgage up for the house and we are going to get the money up front and build the system.

if you think about the red ink that our country is going to be swamped in an already is and the care and medicaid, we have no choice. we have to do things different and it's shocking to me we don't have a congressional budget office and the general accounting office. education services we can look at treating people and appropriate the budgets to treat people bought in this old-fashioned hard silo way but in this new way that we can bring because the smarter planet approaches. you see the business is used. why can't the government use some of those approaches? especially with all of the information data sharing and

ability. have been laid out for us and let's not get stuck in the well that's a dollar a way for me. it doesn't affect my budget. the hell it doesn't. we have to give the incentive to be part of the solution. how much have you looked at the sort of interface between the mental health system and the criminal justice system fax for a while i was the psychiatrist and i ran the second-largest mental hospital in the state of washington every night. i had a little bit less than the mental hospital in the jail. but then it turned back up into

the street a few days. how much have you looked at the funding for what we do with jail's? >> first i am all for people living as independently as they can. that is the goal. but we have cut the pitcher and the because the six patients psychiatric care when we see people and goals because this and are in good nations to walk past them and ignore them. we never do it if they have cancer or dying of heart attacks what's come to the notion i've always trying to make the economic argument because it can be made so persuasively. of course you can make the argument by diverting people with 80 or 90% recidivism rates in the jails who eat up the police time, the car time, the

probation time, the jail time. you add all of those costs and compare what it would take the case manager and supportive housing and found the house to allow people to be part of the community. it's a fraction of the cost and those models are now being built >> host: is the best example you know what?of? >> guest: there's a great example in miami-dade. he's been good to float a bond to pay for more housing and case management. you'll pay you will pay for another forensic unit in the jail and i think i can do it and get back money and put something else and you will need the jail

and to convince the county board and the county commissioner and others brought onto this and now we have a model and that's the kind of stuff we need to look at we can take these into those other models by the way. if it works in this county would work in your county, what is it, so if you are a politician you want someone to come to you and say here's the answer, vote on it. don't worry about it, here's the homework it's all complete. that's what we ought to be doing when you look at it. one of the things is we know what to do.

but we don't move ahead and do it. now why would a model of data county, why is it more frequent out of the country. it's all about political will. we need people to want our education system to make sure that we treat the child and recognize the come from a traffic background. they will never absorb the literacy. we need social and emotional learning. we need to be in on this stuff so we can solve these problems if we have the political will. there is no shortage of solutions what is missing is the political will. >> host: the stigma is that

they got more weakness and they don't get of the bootstraps. >> guest: there is no constituency here. the perception they don't know if they are anonymous. by the way the rest of us are anonymous which is also killing us because we know we have the perception in this town in the power. many are in long-term recovery and no one knows about it. you've got a fraction of those people to be politically active. >> there is no reason why the tail can flag the dog we have seen it with these other interest groups.

>> host: when i was reading the book i was thinking people are going to listen to us and they are going to think about us and the people in their own family and they are going to wonder what can i do. i'm not like patrick kennedy,, don't have the named or the access to all the people around the world. what do you see to because they doing ordinary citizen about what they can do to help this process, how do you teach them how to plug in changing it as they may have the desire to think he is different than me. i could never do what he's doing. >> guest: elicited powerful passionate advocate for social justice and said each time a person stands up or acts to improve the lot of others they send forth a tiny ripple of hope

and coming from the centers of energy, those can create a current that can knock down the walls of oppression and resistance meaning all we need to do in our lives is due the next right thing and try to make the world a little bit better through the small things we do every day that make life easier for someone else. all we have to worry about is our job is and how do we in our lives we get different? i have the kennedy name and all these things going for me. that means i have opportunity to do it in a bigger scale that i am doing what i can do and we need everybody to do what they can do because all of us collectively can have a bigger impact than if all of us act independently. we start to do this now campaign.org which is trying to get action in the 2016 campaign.

so, hearing from republican candidates and you're going to do about the problem is the number one issue in new hampshire. number one issue in new hampshire is the epidemic of opiate overdoses. so all the candidates need our more articulated and well-developed positions in your working to push them before that but if we don't show up at the town hall meetings and we are not asking questions and writing letters to the editor, then guess what we are not with the part not with the part of dialogues of everybody can be part of this and they can help their local chapters and now campaigning. >> host: that his national alliance for the mentally ill. >> guest: .-full-stop so people can look up online and find it. there was a particular incident.

i was amazed at how you decided from all the stuff that went on in your life what you decided to put in the book. one that struck me is when you and your brother decided you're going to you were going to make an intervention with your father. i am sure there are hundreds of people watching this who would like to know how what's the best way or what have you learned that can help make that intervention with my brother or wife or uncle or father or whatever. what would you say to them about -- somebody in your family has a problem. what would you do about? >> guest: when somebody in the family suffers double family suffers. so i often get people in these hearings i do about it. the implementation to tell me about these crises and their family and they tell me what am i going to do if my loved one is suffering. i say first of all what are you

doing yourself for your own mental health? because we get so wrapped up with our loved ones that we are not very helpful to them if we are not helping ourselves and there is an osmosis if the family gets to be healthier mentally, it has a ripple effect on the other family members, so then of course you act in a way that is less reactive. you are just into it more and know how to intervene and be helpful without looking like you're judgmental. all of that is important to get the person in a person in recovery who is in need of it. they can feel like they are getting a lot of patronizing and talk. so they have to be more into and to where they are emotionally because they are scarred and hurt and the instinct is to lash

out at the loved one who's suffering. it's your fault. instead of saying the same i need help coming you need help, let's all get help. >> host: do you think it would have been possible if somebody in this situation had been able to say to your family lets all get together and go and see someone? or pacific to keep it a secret? >> guest: that was an impossibility for our generation but i don't think that it's one for my children's generation and maybe my generation ultimately. but yeah, you think about all the suffering. my parents and my cousin, the brutal murder of my uncle. you know, any future that would be ignored to say listen, you are about to suffer. you are suffering. here's the way you begin to cope with that instead of trying to

stuff it and think it's going to be okay because we all know it's never going to be all right. it always comes out somehow. >> host: you put together an organization called the one mind. talk about that a little bit. >> guest: just as convoluted as our mental health delivery system is, our narrow science system is also convoluted. we have a dozen institutes all studying the brain. you've got that psychological disorder, the mental health, national institute of -- >> it's the brain and give me 50 the diagnosis for the clinical trial even though if we had the alzheimer's folks kind of throw in with the parkinsons pokes the have to mention as one of the symptoms and we that we understand the mechanisms that affect the intellectuals that

have a higher dimension of rate and with down syndrome we could begin to make a better pattern to understand what's going to work in these own this is because they are heterogeneous illnesses. they are not just one illness. they are a kind of spectrum. so when you understand panic were eating disorder or bipolar schizophrenia, you are understanding the patient that has kind of a multitude of these illnesses in packing them that will understand better if we organize the science into more open science principles which basically means let's figure out with all of our new knowledge to the dictator, high computing, how do we get our people involved in this research so we can get a better understanding how to treat the most important organ in our body the brain. >> host: you look at it as

being all brain and chemistry? >> guest: i do in the sense that i think it's imperative that we move this out of the psychology aspect. i all about supportive living as key for my sobriety. supporting my fellows in recovery, connecting with them on a dalia basis, all input into my recovery that i think we need to get the medical piece down because we failed on the medical piece. if we get the medical piece, my belief is that we can then really get the rest of the pieces in place. but we aren't even getting the first thing right where we are dismissing people from even getting detox coverage. we are missing the early screenings in our medical system so i am for fixing those and then while we are why we are doing all these other things as well but the big issues and if i

have this chance to have an obligation to require insurance companies to disclose helping make medical utilization review decisions and how they make these medical necessity determinations to deny this care and it's against the law and the law requires now that we find out our new trading the person with a mental illness or addiction the same as we would treat diabetic, the cardiovascular disease patient, the cancer patient? the only way to know is if we see the algorithm of how they make medical necessities and who goes from primary care, do they provide us with the cardiovascular disease, do they now provided for the person with an eating disorder and what have you? we just need to debate.

guess what put it out. guess what the insurance companies tell us its proprietary. well, guess who is the biggest payer for the bottom-line? the taxpayer and these consumers who are paying and getting nothing for what they are paying for. it's an outrage that we are letting insurance companies walk away leaving a suicide and overdose is rampant in this country and they are to be held accountable. just as much as the federal government for not covering a lot of these things into being more proactive. they are to be held accountable and the only way for us to know is to demand that they -- this refusal to get this information is proprietary and is no longer tolerated that burwell is going to exercise her authority under the affordable care act and get this data from them and you know the president of the united states hasn't done it and the reason he hasn't done it is because the insurance companies, as you know well, they brought

the aca into existence, so no one in the white house wants to pressure any of the other major executivescome and gone, sigma, humana, kaiser, and get they will all be windfall. the money they will make him a on the shared risk that we are all going through, who is the primary beneficiary? the insurance company. it's not going to be the consumer to cause we didn't invest in the public option. we are not returning the dollars into more services. we need better public advocacy in this space command i love -- we played a significant role and he was a beekeeper in healthcare for all. i think that he would be appalled at the fact that we are not holding these insurance companies accountable after

giving them a market that you can't make this up. they are so preferring an self-dealing to all and self-dealing to all these businesses that they supposedly cover so they are referring to companies that they are on the board of making profits here and there into the public is being left out and no one knows this stuff and they love it when no one knows about this stuff and no one is pressuring the president to do this but i'm hoping -- >> host: and your view is that the mental patient, the patient with any kind of emotional, mental illness is at the bottom of the list of people that are concerned. and who's going to squawk -- >> guest: they are not going to deny to be mildly or appeal of care. they were lucky they want to get care because they are feeling so ashamed. entrance companies love that because it means this because it means they don't have to pay out for those folks. >> host: so the real answer is

those national alliance for mentally ill people pressuring the political process to say this is an issue you've got to respond to. you can't -- and i think i would agree with you that not chaplains if there isn't some pressure from the outside. >> guest: frederick douglas said power concedes without demand. never has, and it never will. >> host: this has been a wonderful hour with you, patrick. i hope that people will take the time to read your book. it does as you said you wanted to do, which put it at a compelling narrative in and while you are explaining policy. that's all this book was about as about policy. nobody would read it but the fact that you were willing and open to put yourself into it turned it into a fantastic book.

>> guest: thank you. >> host: my pleasure. >> that was "after words," booktv signature program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed. watch has to "after words" programs online at booktv.org. c-span presents landmark cases, the book a guide to the landmark case series which explores 12 historic supreme court decisions. ..