These kinds of stories are all too common.

These kinds of stories are all too common. We pay a high price for people falling through the cracks of the system, the result of cuts that were designed to save our state money but have had the opposite effect. Many patients forgo the mental-health care they need or families face health crises that end in significant debt or bankruptcy. Others end up seeking care in emergency rooms, creating a strain on our hospitals to care for an influx of patients who have nowhere else to go. These are costly settings to provide care and our emergency rooms and jails aren’t equipped to provide the ongoing care and crisis intervention that would help our neighbors get back on their feet. The immense cost to provide care in these ineffective settings is passed on to all of us. The average family pays more than $1,000 a year to cover the increasing costs of our uninsured neighbors. This is a crisis we must address. The solution is to provide the kind of health care that fully addresses people’s needs, whether mental health or basic medical care. Our community has better, more cost-effective solutions and it’s time we made choices that make sense for our budgets and our well-being. We have the choice to expand health care in our state to 250,000 more people, which would help treat those with mental illnesses and the uninsured who currently can’t afford care. The decision rests with our state Legislature, and it shouldn’t involve partisan politics.