San Francisco might become the first city in the country to guarantee all residents access to mental health care. Supervisors plan to introduce a November ballot measure next week that would ask voters to approve building a walk-in mental health and substance abuse treatment center.
That measure would only need a simple majority vote, but a separate measure to tax large companies to pay for it would need a 2/3rds majority. Either in November or next March, voters could also be asked to approve a new tax on gross receipts of companies, based on how much more their CEOs are paid compared to the median employee.
Supporters say the tax could raise as much 200-million-dollars in the first two years and save the estimated 370-million-dollars the Health Department already spends every year on mental health care.
Source:San Francisco Chronicle