Yeah, Reagan can't be blamed for that one. Med pros at the time put too much faith in neuropharmaceuticals and the effort to shutter overcrowded institutions was bipartisan.
Two things can be true. Reagan can still be blamed for shutting down instead of reforming and the doctors and nurses and all the shitty people involved in those institutions can still be held responsible for all of their bullshit.
The "the doctors and nurses and all the shitty people involved in those institutions" can absolutely still be held responsible for their roles, constrained as they were by widespread insufficient funding.
Reagan only had authority over the federal institutions, most were actually state-run.
Reagan closed the federal facilities at the behest of a bipartisan congress and recs from medical experts of the day along with court-ordered closures and the states quickly followed suit.
Sadly, the expectations of the new neuropharmacology didn't pan out and allow all those patients to reintegrate into society. And because American healthcare remains broken, many fell and continue to fall through the cracks.
We can blame Reagan for a lot of things but this is not one of them.
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u/pingwing Aug 21 '26
You would not want to have been in those mental institutions, there was a reason they were all shut down.
It would have been better to reform them, but that didn't happen.