This is a large problem in Canada as well. A relative is an ER nurse and she has endless amounts to say about the number of people who come in for these kinds of reasons, or less. The hospital she works at is in a town that was economically decimated in the late 80's and only just started to recover. The number of people who go into emergency because of alcoholism, self-neglect, loneliness, and of course (probably encompassing the rest) mental illness is staggering. She says it's one thing to know their names, but it's bad when you know how their [grand-/]children are doing in school, and who visited or did not visit last week. She is not shy about how much she thinks that social programs need to be expanded in accessibility. I agree.

From what I understand, much of the medical world feels the same way. That's one thing I would certainly add to Canadian health care -- some kind of minimum of public mental health and social work. There are a lot of programs already that don't attach a fee for the patient/subject, but they're not necessarily common knowledge or accessible to people as a "walk in and book" sort of service.

edit: To wit, I think the reasons social programs don't work is inaccessibility to those who really need them, lack of familiarity with them, and taboo (but this last one is probably another discussion). I think right now we need more of them, and they need to have access to proper resources and that their end benefit to society would be substantial. I'd be interested in seeing some projections surrounding that to be sure.