For Immediate Release: August 31, 2015
Contact: Gretchen Andersen 202.225.2301

(Washington D.C.) – Congressman Tim Murphy’s bipartisan Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, H.R. 2646, made national and local headlines this weekend following the tragic shooting in Roanoke, Virginia, where two WDBJ7-TV journalists were killed during a live television interview. From Letters to the Editor to local television station stories, Americans are lining up support for H.R. 2646, which delivers treatment to those with serious mental illness before tragedy, and calling on Congress to make the bill a priority when Congress returns next week. 

Further, NAMI Los Angeles County Council is also the latest organization to voice its support for the bill. In a letter to Murphy and Rep. Johnson, executive director Brittney Weissman expressed that H.R. 2646 not only includes critical provisions to improve care for people with serious mental illnesses, it also helps families provide better care and protection for their loved ones. Read the letter here.

With 105 co-sponsors, H.R. 2646 has been endorsed by national organizations including the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Treatment Advocacy Center, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association. Nationwide support for the legislation has come from newspaper editors, physicians, and parents of children with mental illness. More information can be found here. 

New mental health bill could prevent mass shootings
August 29, 2015

This revamped bill builds upon the previous bipartisan version, breaks down federal barriers to care and addresses the obstacles families face when trying to save loved ones from untreated serious mental illness. Had H.R. 2646 been law during my son’s 13-year struggle with severe bipolar disorder, his family would have been able to help him get treatment, and he might very well be alive today. — Dottie Pacharis, Tampa Tribune

Root causes
August 28, 2015

Until it’s possible to intervene in the lives of those whose illnesses rob their ability to make rational choices, they will endure lives of suffering, and society will pay in unsafe and unsanitary streets. There are programs to help this population, but they are fought by those purporting to care about civil liberties, yet who ignore loss of liberties through incarceration, suicide, and victimization. Ask your representatives to support HR2646, a mental health reform bill now before Congress. It’s time for a paradigm shift in treatment of mental illness. — Patricia Fontana, San Francisco Chronicle

Bucshon supports mental health bill in Congress
August 29, 2015

Bucshon says we must re-examine our system and society in general, and figure out why people like Flanagan feel the need to commit violent acts. That’s why Bucshon supports legislation as part of his work on the Energy and Commerce Committee. “Congressman Tim Murphy from the Pittsburgh area has legislation to help revamp the federal programs as it relates to mental illness, try to expand the number of in-patient beds available,” said Bucshon. The bill would also help parents who have adult children with mental illness to get access to their physicians and medical records, who currently can’t because of HIPAA.  There are other parts of the bill whose goal is to not leave those with mental illness out in the cold. — Jon Swaner, WTHI-TV

Rep. Murphy ‘Bitter’ Over Lack Of Action On Mental Health Bill
August 28, 2015

One of the problems with the current laws for mental health, according to Murphy, is confidentiality laws – when a family member of someone who is mentally ill is not told of a potential serious problem. Murphy says his bill would change that. Murphy says there is a stigma with severe mental illness. “When you can’t get treatment and you wait until someone deteriorates so the police are involved, no wonder there is a stigma because people associate mental illness with police and jails and sadly, that’s where so many people get their first treatment is from police,” says Murphy. — John Shumway, KDKA Morning News Radio 

Letter: Mental Health System Broken
August 30, 2015

Sadly there is one disability that has been painfully ignored by the Americans With Disabilities law and the broken mental health system throughout our country and in our own county. A non-partisan bill now in Congress was proposed by Dr. Tim Murphy, HR 2646. If enacted, this law would help families in a mental health crisis act. There is a huge misunderstanding with an acute and profound serious mental illness, that goes untreated and dumped out without care at all to the streets, homeless and psychotic, because the person has lost all insight they need to ask for medical care. — Nancy Jones, Herald-News

Virginia Shooting Has Local Congressman Pushing Mental Health Legislation
August 27, 2015, 5:51 PM

“This is extremely frustrating,” says Congressman Tim Murphy, “and at this point I have to put part of the blame on congress for inaction.” Congressman Murphy, who is a Psychologist, believes his languishing mental health reform bill could slow the parade of faces of the shooters and the dead that have become all too familiar in our daily new cycles. Murphy says his bill would make treatment available to more people, erase the insurance gap, and give families and mental health professionals the power to be more proactive rather than reactive. — John Shumway, KDKA-TV

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In his seventh term representing Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district encompassing suburban Pittsburgh including parts of Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland and Greene Counties, Rep. Tim Murphy also serves as a Commander in the Navy Reserve Medical Service Corps as a psychologist treating Wounded Warriors with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury.