Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Patrick Kennedy on Autism,Mental Health, Addiction, and Political Change
29 Apr 2025
Send us a text Patrick Kennedy shares his journey from Congressman to mental health advocate, revealing how his family history and personal struggles with addiction shaped his mission to transform America's approach to mental health care. • Passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act by attaching it to the 2008 bank bailout bill • Advocates for unifying mental health, addiction, and intellectual disability communities around shared needs • Explains how our healthcare system focuses on "sick care" rather than prevention and community support • Identifies how isolation and siloed treatment approaches fail those with co-occurring conditions • Describes meeting colleagues in Congress who privately struggled with mental health but couldn't publicly acknowledge it • Working with faith communities to create support networks for families affected by mental health challenges • Emphasizes that housing stability and employment opportunities are essential components of recovery • Founded the Kennedy Forum to build political power for mental health advocacy • Promotes his book "Profiles in Mental Health Courage" featuring stories of individuals and families Tell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me? The World, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Full Episode
Welcome to Why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Maitour. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world.
Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World, Humanity Over Handcuffs special event. Joining us today is Patrick Kennedy, a retired American politician and mental health advocate. He was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives who served from 1995 to 2011.
As the youngest son of Senator Ted Kennedy and nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former Senator Robert Kennedy, he joins us to share his journey of becoming a mental health advocate. We are honored to have him join us today. Thanks for coming on. Oh, thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. You've written a lot of bills while you was in the House.
What kind of strategies went into formulating those bills to try and get them passed so the outcome is, of course, helping the people that need it?
It was more driven out of first this general interest to promote mental health and addiction. I instinctively knew that this was a marginalized population. And I definitely think that my having grown up in my family really sensitized me to that with my aunt starting Special Olympics and with my dad's work to try to build health care coverage.
And in addition to the Americans with Disability Act, we need something similar to advocate for mental health and addiction. And of course, my own experience as a policymaker made me realize that we had siloed the elements of an advocacy movement so that everybody was
defined by their diagnoses rather than defined by their needs, which frankly overlap, whether you have autism, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, addiction, schizophrenia, bipolar. 99% of our agenda, home and community-based care, is really what should propel a more cohesive, organized, and sophisticated effort to promote a new paradigm of delivery for care that involves the community and social supports.
Frankly, do more for people with these illnesses than just purely medical interventions. Although the only way we pay for healthcare today is through medical intervention. I have to say a lot of growing up and watching my father in the Senate and my own experience really I think helped me
organize my thinking, which of course itself was influenced by having read a lot about the civil rights movement, my dad's work on disability and healthcare rights. That's how I figured out this is an area that I want to make a difference in because frankly, unlike a lot of areas of society, this is not a well-developed
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