A call to action, the report details how federal and state governments can use community-based services and supports for people with mental illnesses to save billions of dollars and improve healthcare outcomes.

Main points of the report include:
-States must determine how many people with disabilities are served in unnecessarily segregated settings and what community-based services are necessary to support reintegration and recovery. They then must shift funding from institutions to community-based services.

-Implementing Olmstead programs through health care reform would save billions of taxpayer dollars by making essential community services available to people with mental illnesses.

-Often pressured by profit-making providers, states continue to waste valuable resources by placing people with mental illnesses in costly, ineffective institutional settings. The cost of a supportive apartment is one eighth that of state hospital care, just over a third of the cost in a board-and-care facility.

-It is critical to promote Supreme Court and other judicial nominees who have an understanding of and intention to uphold Olmstead, the ADA and other civil rights laws (abstract from: http://www.bazelon.org/newsroom/2009/Olmstead_Call-to-Action.htm).