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Hospitals were closed with the release of new drugs that promised to treat mental illnesses. They didn’t deliver, but the hospitals were closed anyway.

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That is a truly wild bunch of historical revisionism. In the 70's there was a push for greater mental health treatment.

Reagan repealed the Mental Health Systems Act (the result of a commission under Carter) as part of his "small government" mantra.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...

Reagan was elected as a conservative backlash to Carter's progressive policies. We're talking about someone so petty he ripped functioning solar panels off the roof of the White House.

"Solar panels" - makes these sound like they were photovoltaics and not leaky solar waters heaters.

They leaked water, something you do not want happening in a historical property.

Reagan made a lot of terrible choices, removing leaky containers from one one of our nation's most iconic historic buildings is not among them.

...and the fact people were horribly abused, it became widely published, and public outcry was a big factor in closing the "hospitals" that didn't treat their patients.

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