Why SUICIDE Crisis Lines should be owned and operated by private, not for profit entities:

• Individuals in crisis would not likely call a crisis hotline they knew was operated by the Federal Government

• KBHC purges individually-identifiable information on callers to 1-800-SUICIDE on a monthly basis. Currently the federal government receives the phone numbers (caller id—even for those who block their numbers) and has not even identified the need for a plan to protect the personal information obtained on callers in crisis

• Without a strict confidential policy on data obtained on callers, information could be used against individuals who called suicide crisis lines who attempt to obtain credit, life and health insurance and mortgages.

• Even if the current Administration adopted a confidentiality plan for callers to suicide crisis line, nothing would prevent future Administrations from changing or abandoning this policy.

• KBHC has demonstrated a full commitment to national suicide crisis lines that connect callers in crisis to the closest crisis center to them so that effective referrals to social, community and health supports can be made.

• Over the past decade, the Federal Government has systematically been dismantling this nation’s social safety net, Medicaid, Medicare and aid to families with dependent children. In 2008, Congress was unable to override a Presidential veto that significantly cut the number of children who received health insurance through SCHIP. These were children whose parents did not obtain health benefits through work, or who were unable to afford health insurance.

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration does not have the Congressional authority to operate a national suicide crisis line and given the current level of funding for the Wars in Iraq and Afganistan, there is no certainty that subsequent Administrations will support current levels of support or any support at all.

• The government by its own admission does not provide care. It is an institution.

• KBHC founded 1-800-SUICIDE out of a sincere desire to prevent suicide and offer unconditional support and hope. The Federal Governments wants 1-800-SUICIDE because no national mental health programs exist after the 1980s.

• With the governments history of spying on its own people it cannot be trusted to protect the data on callers to 1-800-SUICIDE.

• Rescue is sent in the form of police by the current network under control by the government.

• KBHC will work to move rescue to the psychiatric emergency response teams and improve the line/network in many ways that only innovative, non bureaucratic driven advocacy organizations can do. For example using punk rock concerts to raise awareness, recruit volunteers to become trained peer counselors.

• When 1-800-SUICIDE was a grass roots advocacy effort the local agencies were happy to be a part of a positive movement. When the government took over the control they heaped reporting requirements onto the small non profit agencies that made being a part of the network unattractive. It is safe to say that government ownership could in the end kill 1-800-SUICIDE. They neither could conceive of it, nor create it nor replicate the good will generated by its amazing story yet with the simple stroke of its bureaucratic might can crush it and the spirit from which it emanated.

• Since when did the US Government get an award for running anything efficiently and better than the private sector?

• Why would we ever want the government to run a social service that is designed to empathetically and unconditionally care about each and every person who comes in contact with the program?

To use 1-800-SUICIDE which when the government let the grant in 2004 to the MHA of NYC all they had to do is require in the contract for the grant to make sure the winning application had the rights to use 1-800-SUICIDE. They did not require it and instead thought they could just create a new number and ignore the 6 years and 1.5 million callers to 1-800-SUICIDE. That is arrogance and typical of the Bush Administration.

What is not typical is the Bush Administration setting up a competitive environment pitting the government against a non profit that was doing the work for less than 50% of what it is now costing the government to do. In almost every other case it is the exact opposite. Even the war in Iraq is largely contracted out to Halliburton and other contractors like Blackwater.

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