North Cook News

Mirroring two key issues from the last presidential election cycle – battling opioids and regulatory reform – U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) unveiled his goals for the rest of 2018 as chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee.

In a June 7 speech to The Ripon Society, a Washington, D.C.-based Republican public policy organization, Roskam said partisan rancor often gets in the way of decision-making in the capitol.

“We need to be thinking more aspirationally about the health debate,” he stated in a release posted on the society’s website. “What we’re trying to do is pose a different question. Because if you ask any member of Congress what their view is of the Affordable Care Act, it goes to shirts and skins immediately.

“You can hardly talk to one another, and it’s just not helpful,” the congressman added.

As a remedy, Roskam is re-framing the debate toward concrete improvements the committee can make to have a positive impact. Hence his interest is easing the regulatory burden on doctors.

“The more time I spend learning about this issue, the more I’m realizing that some of these things are just discouraging from a health care provider’s point of view,” he explained. “It’s busy work. It’s nonsense. It’s fruitless.”

In addressing the opioid epidemic, Roskam said it wasn’t realistic to expect Congress to pass one law to address all the facets of the problem. He reminded his audience three entities needed to participate in the solution: lawmakers, the pharmaceutical industry and health care providers.

“There are no clean hands,” he said. “If you look back, there are government policies that were absolutely driving this. When the federal government was evaluating health care providers on how they treat pain, guess what? They were going to make pain go away. Pharma has got a lot to answer for, obviously. Health care providers have a lot to answer for.”