PUBLIC AFFAIRS Gary: When addressing health issues, we seem to focus on physical health. However, our society is increasingly feeling the impact of mental health issues. As President, how would you seek to address mental health issues? Buttigieg: Well, the time has come for us to put mental health on an equal playing field as physical health. Unfortunately, because of stigma and because of silence many Americans and policymakers have not paid enough attention to mental health concerns. Yet, something like onein-four Americans will face some kind of mental health struggle or challenge in their lifetime. Which means every family, every community is touched by these issues. Now, more and more you have things like mental health parity on the books, but it doesn’t always happen in practice. We need to make sure that health insurance adequately covers mental health needs. I would like to see insurance companies covering annual mental health checkups the same way as we do physicals. I think we need to have more research in our federal institutions, like the Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention) and the National Institutes of Health, that focuses on mental health issues. I think as we move toward universal healthcare, it will help us make sure that people are covered for both mental and physical health concerns. I’m particularly troubled by states resisting expansion of Medicaid, knowing how many of those most in need of support and treatment for mental health are also people who rely on Medicaid. We need to make sure, as we move toward universal healthcare, that in the meantime we are strengthening Medicaid and I’m afraid that privatization is not helping in places like Iowa. Gary: There is a current shortage of skilled labor in the country. A shortage of skilled labor will have an impact on infrastructure plans across the nation. What should the country be doing to help with ensuring an ongoing acceptable match of skill availability for job availability? Buttigieg: We talked about higher education, but there is a lot more to skills than that. We need to be beefing up career and technical education in our high schools, and we should be partnering with organized labor to make sure that apprenticeships, and other pathways to gain the types of skills that are needed to do well and [create] success in the American middle class and make sure that those skills are more widely available. Also, it’s another area where we see, unfortunately, a lot of racial disparity in this country. So, whether it is making sure that we’re partnering with the Building Trades to recruit diverse classes of young July 2019 The URBAN EXPERIENCE 41
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