Deinstitutionalization

“. . . the term ‘deinstitutionalization’ was misleading. The fall of the asylum was as much a transfer of patients from one institution to another as it was a release of people with mental disabilities into the community. The coming of Medicaid in the United States enabled the states to shift elderly and poor residents to nursing homes, triggering a steep drop in the number of aged patients in state hospitals. During the 1960s, the population in U.S. nursing homes jumped from 470,000 to more than 900,000. By 1985, more than 600,000 nursing home residents were diagnosed as mentally ill, at a cost of $10.5 billion” (Dowbiggin, 181).