Among other Great Society initiatives, LBJ signed into law Medicare, Medicaid, and the Mental Health Amendments of 1967. The purpose of that last was to move the mentally ill from remote, jail-like asylums to community-based treatment centers in order to provide better care and to recognize the dignity of people so afflicted. We regularly hear about the funding of Medicare and Medicaid, yet nothing about funding for community-based mental healthcare. Congress failed.