U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, (R-TN-01) announced Friday he will soon retire from Congress.
“As someone who practiced medicine for over 30 years, I said I would serve five or six terms because I never intended this job to be a second career,” Roe said in a statement on his website.“After prayerful consideration, I have decided to retire at the end of the 116th Congress.”
Roe chaired the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in 2017.
“I had one, three and six-year legislative goals for the committee: to increase access to care, improve the electronic health records system, review VA assets to ensure an effective use of resources, and bring true accountability to the department. I never could have imagined that we would accomplish all that in my first term leading the committee – in large part because of the leadership of President Trump,” he said.
“In particular, I was proud to author the MISSION Act – a transformative piece of legislation to ensure veterans have the ability to receive the best possible care now, and in the future – and the Forever GI Bill – to ensure veterans never lose access to the education benefits they have earned.”
Roe also described how he tried to “undo some of the harm” from Obamacare.
“We have made great progress in reversing some of the most damaging effects of this law such as passing my bill to repeal a government payment setting board that likely would have rationed care,” Roe said.
“We took the teeth out of the individual mandate and just last month repealed three harmful taxes that discouraged medical innovation and drove up costs for patients.”
Tennessee Republican Party spokeswoman Heather Trotter said in a statement that “there are few politicians that uphold the conservative principles and exhibit the leadership that Dr. Phil Roe has while serving in Congress since he was elected in 2008.”
“He will be difficult to replace as he has served both the state of Tennessee and the United States well, but I have confidence that the next Congressman from Tennessee’s 1st District will lead with the same strong conservative values that Dr. Roe has maintained throughout his tenure as a United States Representative,” Trotter said.
– – –
Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
[…] Rep. Phil Roe, (R-TN-01) says one of his goals before he retires is to pass bipartisan legislation to resolve the issue of surprise medical […]
He will be sorely missed, military veterans across the nation couldn’t have asked for a more sincere advocate than Dr. Roe. Drafted straight out of medical school, served overseas in Korea, and the VA medical center in his district is the flat out, hands down best of the four I have experienced across the country.
As chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, he has been highly effective in reversing some of the worst abuses of the VA – his objective and commitment to veterans was just this:
“I want you to have the absolute best health care than can be provided by anybody in the world.”
Full speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAMdgpK-dIA
FREE ATLAST!!! FREE AT LAST!!! By gosh at the end of this Congress we will be free at last of Phil Roe (Heritage – 70%) who for the past few years has been vying with Chuck Fleischmann (Heritage – 71%) as to who can be the most dadgum worthless congressman from Tennessee’s Republican delegation in the U. S. House of Representatives. What a wonderful opportunity to replace Roe with a solid conservative and move the Tennessee delegation in the House yet further to the right.
A lot of conservative Republicans have been mentioned as potential candidates for this seat. In fact, too many in this no-runoff state. Hopefully they can all get together and sort it all out before any destructive conservative vs. conservative primary damage that will only allow some non-ideological centrist mayor of some berg from East Tennessee to win.
My early line favorite – Timothy Hill. Anyone BUT Jeremy Faison who was a member of the Toadying Ten who voted AGAINST closing Tennessee’s Republican primary as of now.