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Sen. Moore honored by Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention
February 16, 2007...The Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention honored Sen. Richard T. Moore, D-Uxbridge, with a Leadership in Prevention Award for his leadership to include suicide prevention in the state’s landmark health care reform law.
“I am very honored to receive this important award from the Coalition,” said Moore. “We are doing much better than other states in addressing the issues surrounding suicide, but we must continue working together to do more. Suicide is preventable and we need to reach out to those vulnerable individuals to prevent tragedies from affecting our families and impacting our communities.” According to the data update distributed at the event, Massachusetts has one of the lowest suicide rates in the nation, ranking 47th with 429 suicides in 2004. Each year, more people die from suicide than homicide, but the good news is that 80% of the people who seek treatment for depression are treated successfully. Moore, Senate Chair of the Health Care Financing Committee and one of the principal architects of the health care reform law was awarded a Leadership in Suicide Prevention Award at the Eighth Annual State House Day event held in the Great Hall along with Senator Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, former Minority Leader Brian P. Lees, Reps. Patricia Walrath, D-Stow, Robert Hargraves, D-Groton and Ronald Mariano, D-Quincy. Past honoree, Sen. Robert A. Antonioni, D-Leominster, presented the award to Moore at the event. "I thank Sen. Moore for his leadership in including additional money for suicide prevention within the landmark health care reform law of 2006. It is so easy to lose sight of these smaller initiatives when you are working on large scale reforms, but Sen. Moore never lost sight of these priorities. I call him the rock star of health care finance. Sen. Moore has been invited to visit places all over the country to do presentations on our new health care law. Its feels like we have the Paul McCartney of health care financing right here in our own backyard!" The Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention is a broad based inclusive alliance of suicide prevention advocates, including public and private agency representatives, policy makers, suicide survivors, mental health and public health consumers and providers and concerned citizens committed to working together to reduce the incidence of self-hard and suicide in the Commonwealth. For more information on Sen. Moore’s work in the Senate, log onto his website at www.senatormoore.com |
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