> But mental illness itself has no check point. How can we ensure that people do not have untreated Schizophrenia? Mandatory checks for everyone once a year? I'm really not sure how it could be done.
You can't ensure that every single person that has a mental disability gets treatment, but as a society we do not support easy access to mental health treatment. Mental health services, like physical health services, are pay to play and that provides a huge barrier for people with mental disability, esp. since some amount of those people will have a very hard time affording such treatment and/or medication. Consider also that folks with mental disability tend to have less robust support networks of family of friends and that mental health care has stigma attached to it for most of the US population.
The best option is to reduce the difficult of getting mental health care treatment as much as possible: universal health care, public awareness campaigns to fight against social stigma, and more robust social services.
You can't ensure that every single person that has a mental disability gets treatment, but as a society we do not support easy access to mental health treatment. Mental health services, like physical health services, are pay to play and that provides a huge barrier for people with mental disability, esp. since some amount of those people will have a very hard time affording such treatment and/or medication. Consider also that folks with mental disability tend to have less robust support networks of family of friends and that mental health care has stigma attached to it for most of the US population.
The best option is to reduce the difficult of getting mental health care treatment as much as possible: universal health care, public awareness campaigns to fight against social stigma, and more robust social services.