Fixing our fragmented mental health care system is a key priority in dealing with the crisis we have today regarding Americans’ mental well-being. The services are not uniformly available, often late in getting to the people who need them and all of this has a profoundly negative impact on both the patients and the providers. Dealing with the physical side of the medical community is difficult enough. Imagine being in emotional distress and the crisis building up to a point where an emergency exists or the stigma you feel is traumatizing. On top of that having to tell your story six different times to get to the right person. Such is often the case in the provision of mental health services. We are talking about issues involving mental health counselors, psychiatrists, addiction professionals and others. To discuss what she’s hoping can be done, and the signs that progress is being made, is Mohini Ventkadesh, chief of staff for the National Council for Mental Wellbeing (TheNationalCouncil.org). It’s an extremely challenging and crucial topic is a moment of great anxiety in our country.

In a recent decision, The United States Supreme Court struck down limits on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties. While some see this as a win for Republicans, our guest, Brody Mullins, a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of “The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took over Big Government,” thinks in contrast to the ascendant position of Super PACS since the Citizens’ United decision back in 2010, where the money and transparency are truly dark, this may prove to be a better, more sunlit, method of campaign finance. He’s assuming in his analysis that Congress has no appetite for true campaign finance reform. It all gets a bit complicated so try to focus on this podcast without distraction.

It might seem on paper that the world’s democracies, as part of their first act, have done a great job of building mechanisms and approaches to make the whole system work–voting and elections, safeguards for them, and ways to expand the franchise. Yet, particularly in the United States, where money plays such a key role and lobbyists make a living representing special interests, have we done all we could to engage the public in an ongoing effort to plug them in to have a say between elections on a host of issues? Constant polling and town halls with elected officials may make us feel as if we’re being heard, but an objective look would say we’re not really a big part of the lawmaking process. So how do we re-engage in a way that is genuine and that averts the backsliding that we now see in democracies? Our guest, Peter Macleod, and co-author, along with Richard Johnson, of the book, “Democracy’s Second Act: Why Politics Needs the Public,” joins us to discuss.