Arizona saw seven governors come and go in the time it took Arnold v. Sarn to resolve, and another case that addresses a forgotten population – prisoners and their health care – began.

In 1980, local mental health experts came together to draft what became known as Senate Bill 1057, a proposed statute intended to create a responsive and accessible community-based system for persons with serious mental illness.

After mass shootings at each of those places came the questions of what role mental illness played and what reforms can be made to mental-health policy to prevent such shootings in the future.

Gov. Jan Brewer on Oct. 20 proposed a policy shift that would steer the mental health care of thousands of Arizona residents to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System and away from state-contracted private care managers. The recommendation came ...

The lawsuit that led to the creation of the modern behavioral health care system in Maricopa County has created what many experts say is an artificial set of standards that ignores the real needs of patients. But confusion and disagreement over ways to improve the system have delayed the kind of meaningful reform that almost everyone in the health care community recognizes as necessary.

Magellan Health Services has adopted a slogan since taking over Maricopa County's behavioral health care system two years ago: "Getting Better All the Time." The reforms promised by the Maryland-based company in the months before taking control of the system were put on hold while the company tried to rebound from the loss of medical records, a critical audit by the court and a series of well-publicized murders committed by untreated patients.

The Governor's Office and the Arizona Department of Health Services were pitted against each other during a hearing on the fractured condition of the county's mental health care system.