Americans are familiar with the horrors of the opioid crisis, and government at every level has tried to respond with spending on treatment programs and more. But one area that deserves more scrutiny is how government programs may be contributing to the epidemic.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson released a report this month from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that connects the dots between Medicaid and the opioid epidemic. The report doesn’t claim too much, conceding that everything from too many prescriptions to drug marketing contributed to the epidemic.

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