The Deseret News reports:

Experts Say Medicaid Expansion Will Prevent Massacres like Sandy Hook

[…]

In the wake of last week’s tragic school shooting in Newtown, Conn., many are starting to point the finger at U.S. government programs like Medicaid, saying those programs need to be expanded to prevent future tragedies.

There is room for doubt. First, Connecticut already has one of the most expansive Medicaid programs in the country.

Second, government programs hardly seem a model of mental health care. Consider this Los Angeles Times item from 2011:

A federal appeals court Tuesday lambasted the Department of Veterans Affairs for failing to care for those suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and ordered a major overhaul of the behemoth agency.

Treatment delays for PTSD and other combat-related mental illnesses are so “egregious” that they violate veterans’ constitutional rights and contribute to the despair behind many of the 6,500 suicides among veterans each year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in its 2–1 ruling.

Or consider this account of the Veterans Administration by a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan:

Yet, even in the darkest days of my own post-traumatic stress, when I was considering choosing between making my suicide look like an accident or taking a swan dive off some beautiful bridge, I never considered going to the V.A. for help.

My image of the V.A., formed while I was on active duty, was of an ineffective, uncaring institution. Tales circulated among my fellow Marines of its institutional indifference, and those impressions were confirmed when I left Iraq for home.

Or just Google terms like “veterans mental health failure.”