In response to Speaker Paul Ryan’s Weekly Press Conference today, Dr. Brad Boivin, Candidate for Wisconsin’s 1stCongressional District, is encouraging Congress to talk directly with mental health professionals about reasonable and manageable solutions to the opioid epidemic.

“Washington has a tendency to engage in knee-jerk reactions to our nation’s problems, oftentimes writing overly burdensome regulations and spending money that is not used efficiently and does not adequately address the problem,” Boivin said.

As a clinical psychologist who specializes in addiction treatment, Boivin has seen firsthand what happens at the intersection of overly burdensome government regulations and addiction treatment and said, “Much of what I have seen is concerning.”

Boivin recently worked with the State Legislature to write a law that removed overly burdensome government regulations that were interfering with access to addiction treatment in Wisconsin. Boivin said, “The law I worked on with Representatives Cindi Duchow and John Nygren has the potential to increase access to addiction treatment in Wisconsin by as much as 500% and without costing the Wisconsin taxpayers a single dime.” The bill passed both the Wisconsin Assembly and the Senate with unanimous support and was signed into law by Governor Scott Walker on April 9, 2018.

When Congress addresses initiatives to combat the opioid epidemic next week, Boivin is encouraging them to “avoid the temptation to simply throw taxpayer money at the problem and, instead, take time to talk with mental health practitioners from managed care organizations and rural community clinics across the country to find out what the government can do to get out of the way of treatment as opposed to writing well-intentioned laws that may actually create barriers to treatment.”

Boivin encourages Congress to take a closer look at Wisconsin’s H.O.P.E. legislation, spearheaded by Representative John Nygren, as “an example of commonsense, conservative solutions to the opioid and overdose epidemic.”

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