Low-income children on Medicaid are given antipsychotic drugs at a rate four times higher than children covered by private insurance, and for less serious conditions, according to new research to be published early next year.

The research, conducted by a team at Rutgers University and Columbia University and to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs, is already available online.

The question is, do children on government health care get drugged more often because they need it, or because it’s easier for the bureaucrats than counseling and therapy, which can be more expensive?

As it turns out, Medicaid pays much less for counseling and therapy than for drugs, and there are long waiting lists for psychiatrists who accept Medicaid, facts which encourage doctors treating a Medicaid patient to favor the prescription, even if it might not be strictly necessary.

“It’s easier for patients, and it’s easier for docs,” said Dr. Derek H. Suite, a psychiatrist in the Bronx whose pediatric cases include children and adolescents covered by Medicaid and who sometimes prescribes antipsychotics. “But the question is, ‘What are you prescribing it for?’ That’s where it gets a little fuzzy.”

Too often, Dr. Suite said, he sees young Medicaid patients to whom other doctors have given antipsychotics that the patients do not seem to need. Recently, for example, he met with a 15-year-old girl. She had stopped taking the antipsychotic medication that had been prescribed for her after a single examination, paid for by Medicaid, at a clinic where she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Why did she stop? Dr. Suite asked. “I can control my moods,” the girl said softly.

After evaluating her, Dr. Suite decided she was right. The girl had arguments with her mother and stepfather and some insomnia. But she was a good student and certainly not bipolar, in Dr. Suite’s opinion.

“Normal teenager,” Dr. Suite said, nodding. “No scrips for you.” — New York Times

The research data showed that 4 percent of children on Medicaid received antipsychotic drugs, compared to 1 percent of privately insured children. But the expected increase in need for the drugs among poor children due to their circumstances was only 2 to 1.

The drugs at issue were FDA approved for disorders such as schizophrenia, autism and bipolar disorder. But the study found that children on Medicaid were much more likely to receive them for less serious conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or “persistent defiance.”

That’s right, a child with his own mind has to be drugged into submission. No social stability without individual stability.

Children on Medicaid are just the tip of the iceberg. Those in foster care are drugged at such high rates as to defy belief: half to two-thirds of foster children in Florida, Texas and Massachusetts are on antipsychotic drugs, thanks largely to discredited scientific theories still being used by the federal government.

Of course, the government generally needs to drug your children when the public school system fails to destroy their souls and turn them into automatons. O brave new world, that has such people in it!

["Sheep on Drugs" photo by Lefteris Heretakis; CC BY 2.0]