By Rep. Peter Roskam Summer has ended and that means it's back to school time for families across the country. For those parents who recently loaded up the car and dropped their kids off at college, the excitement of a nother year of school is tempered by another year of looming tuition bills and ever-increasing education expenses. As parents, we want our kids to have every opportunity for the future, and higher education is important for their success. But the rising cost of a college degree is making it harder for students to get a quality, affordable education without being saddled with thousands of dollars in student loan debt. In the past five years, the cost of a college degree has jumped more than 27 percent for public four-year institutions and 29 percent for public two-year institutions, placing a degree completely out of reach for some and presenting a significant challenge to more middle class families every year. At a time when our economy is still weak from the recession, lawmakers must step up to ensure college remains affordable for our nation's kids. That is why in July, my colleagues and I passed a number of common-sense, bipartisan bills aimed at addressing the cost of college for American families. The cost of college has become much more than the advertised price of tuition, room and board. Fees and course materials add up, and navigating the endless bureaucracy of student loans and financial aid programs can be daunting. To take some of the guesswork out of financial planning, the House passed the Strengthening Transparency in Higher Education Act, which creates a consumer-tested College Dashboard, giving students and parents the tools to fully understand the total cost of college before deciding where to continue their education. Another bill, theEmpowering Students Through Enhanced Financial Counseling Act, provides interactive counseling through an online tool each year a student participates in a federal loan program. By increasing loan awareness and financial planning before and throughout the college experience, we can eliminate surprise expenses and ensure students work through available grant and scholarship options to shrink the size of their student loan. The House also passed two bills that would streamline the tax code, making it easier for families to use tax credits to make college more affordable. The Student and Family Tax Simplification Act consolidates four existing education provisions into a single, modernized and permanent American Opportunity Tax Credit that families can use to offset tuition expenses, fees and course materials. Middle- and low-income families would be eligible for a 100 percent tax credit for the first $2,000 of eligible higher education expenses and a 25 percent tax credit for the next $2,000 of such expenses, providing relief for those who need it the most. The House also voted to reform the Child Tax Credit, indexing it to inflation and eliminating the marriage penalty so families can more easily receive their full eligible amount. Simplifying education tax credits ensures families can get the most savings possible, and students can spend less time worrying about financing their education, instead focusing on developing the skills necessary to enter the workforce. Obtaining a quality education is key to bettering the lives of our children and ensuring their long term success, and getting a college degree shouldn't mean a lifetime of student loan debt. These common-sense, bipartisan bills are a big step toward tackling the cost of higher education, and opening up more opportunities for the next generation. U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Wheaton, represents Illinois' 6th District

By Rep. Peter Roskam For too many children in the foster care system, their lives have been filled with instability, abuse, and neglect. Often these children are passed from home to home not knowing how long they will stay in one place or who they can trust. The psychological toll of such an environment makes it all too easy for human trafficking rings to target vulnerable foster care youth and force them into what can only be described as modern day slavery. That is why lawmakers, community leaders and law enforcement agencies are joining forces to prevent the estimated 104,000 children in foster care from becoming victims of physical and psychological abuse. Studies show the majority of trafficked children are either currently in foster care or had been in the child welfare system in the past. Of the children reported missing in 2010 that were also likely trafficking victims, 60 percent were in foster care or group homes when they ran away. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates the majority of human trafficking victims experienced sexual abuse growing up -- victims of sexual abuse are 28 times more likely to be coerced into trafficking than children who have not suffered such abuse. Even though a history of prior abuse places many children in foster care at far greater risk of becoming victims of human trafficking, the child welfare system must do more to identify and protect those at risk. Last month, I joined my colleagues in passing the bipartisan Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act, which makes critical reforms to our foster care laws, working to identify those most vulnerable to predators and take concrete steps to protect these children from abuse. First, the bill increases the reporting requirements for foster parents and child welfare agencies, encouraging them to identify at-risk youth and develop new ways to ensure better information is provided to caseworkers assigned to these children. Our legislation also works to address current foster care policies that can make it difficult for children to participate in sports, sleep over at a friend's house, obtain a driver's license, or get a part-time job -- all common rites of passage for kids making the transition into adulthood. Although well-intentioned, in some cases these strict rules can lead to a child becoming isolated and separated from family and friends, making them more vulnerable to victimization. The Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act offers financial support and incentives for the adoption of foster children to families who otherwise couldn't afford it. Providing these children more normalcy through social development activities and increasing their chance of adoption into a permanent family is key to not only protecting them from predators but setting up foster care children for long-term success. Through partnerships at the federal, state and local level, we can go after the criminals who commit this horrible crime, and protect the most vulnerable members of our society. These reforms are a huge step forward, and I will continue to press forward to stamp out the scourge of human trafficking in our communities. U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Wheaton, represents Illinois' 6th District

By Rep. Peter Roskam Later this month, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology--commonly known as PCAST--will issue a highly anticipated report on antibiotic resistance, bringing much-needed attention to a growing public health threat that is fast becoming a global crisis. Each year, the Centers for Disease Control estimates more than 2 million Americans are diagnosed with an infection resistant to virtually all available treatments and 23,000 die as a result. These drug-resistant bacteria, or superbugs, used to be rare even in hospital settings, but the last ten years have seen hard to treat infections like MRSA spreading into communities and other extremely serious infections like CRE developing resistance to all possible treatments. In April, the World Health Organization issued its first global report on antibiotic resistance and found increasingly resistant infections present in every corner of the globe. And for their most recent threat report last fall, the CDC listed superbugs as the number one public health threat facing the United States today. What do these dire warnings mean in the real world? The rapid increase in antibiotic resistance coupled with the lack of drug treatments currently available or in development has us hurtling into a post-antibiotic era where a simple infection can once again prove deadly and major surgeries we take for granted today become too high-risk because of the threat of untreatable bacterial infections. Twenty years ago, almost 20 pharmaceutical companies had large, active antibiotic research and development programs; today only three large and a handful of smaller companies continue in these efforts to find new and effective treatments. One study suggests only a handful of new drugs are in development to treat multi-drug resistant infections--not nearly enough to keep pace with this rapidly evolving threat. Recently, I joined with fellow Chicago-area Congressman Danny Davis to introduce the bipartisan DISARM Act, which will spur drug development by updating how our healthcare system views antibiotics. Currently, the federal healthcare program Medicare reimburses hospitals for the use of only one class of antibiotics: the inexpensive, everyday drugs like amoxicillin, penicillin, and azithromycin that cost as little as ten dollars for a course of treatment. However, highly advanced, powerful antibiotics can cost millions to develop and hundreds of dollars to prescribe in the hospital. The financial loss to hospitals--being paid only a fraction of the cost of the drug--means doctors are less likely to use the high-powered antibiotic, and without market demand, companies are reluctant to invest in developing antibiotics that may never reach a patient in need. The short-term, or episodic nature of antibiotics is also partly to blame. While a medication for obesity or high blood pressure may be taken every day for life, antibiotics are meant to be used for only a few days or weeks at a time, with reduces demand. Infectious disease specialists, hospitals and researchers all point to the broken antibiotics market as the central impediment to new drug investment. DISARM breaks this cycle by adding a new classification for the high-powered antibiotics that treat superbugs. By modernizing how Medicare views these select drugs and reimbursing their use at cost, we can ensure a functioning market for their use and help to reinvigorate the pipeline of new drugs in development. Dr. Emily Landon, the Medical Director of Infection Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship at the University of Chicago described the DISARM Act as the striking the right balance: "Instead of providing an incentive to hospitals to using new and unnecessarily broad drugs, it removes the disincentive from creating them; it removes the obstacles for drug development to happen so that we have these drugs available when we need them, but it doesn't encourage hospitals and doctors to use them when they aren't necessarily needed." The DISARM Act specifically works to address all four critical recommendations from the CDC's fall threat report, requiring a multiagency effort to recommend ways the government can streamline processes and cut bureaucratic red tape to better fight antibiotic resistance. It directs hospitals to report drug-resistant bacterial infections and their treatment to the CDC through the National Healthcare Safety Network, the nation's most widely used healthcare-associated infection tracking system to better monitor and treat superbugs throughout the United States. The rapid growth of drug-resistant bacteria threatens millions of Americans and could push modern medicine back in time. Combating the threat requires urgent action to modernize our healthcare system and spur the development of critical drugs to fight deadly bacteria. We need to get researchers and scientists back in the business of developing advanced antibiotics, which takes a very long time to produce results. If we don't start tackling this challenge soon, it will be too late. Congressman Peter Roskam represents the Sixth District of Illinois and serves on the Ways and Means Committee.