If you are concerned about the pain epidemic that is going on in this country, it may be time to send a letter to your senator. The National Pain Care Policy Act of 2009 is now in the Senate, waiting for a vote. The National Pain Foundation summarizes the bill and says that most of the time painful conditions can be helped, provided you get the right treatment. Just the same, people with pain often face a lot of obstacles to prevention, assessment and diagnosis and treatment or management of their problem. The National Pain Care Policy Act seeks to address these obstacles.
The bill has a 4 pronged approach to changing the face of pain management in America:
- More research at the National Institute of Health
- Institute of Medicine conference that will report its findings to Congress
- Peer education and training for health professionals
- National public awareness campaign to reach consumers, patients, families and caregivers.
The National Pain care Policy Act is not ambitious enough or energetic enough to meet the eeds of Americans suffering pain. It does not incresea funding at NIH for pain research. It doesnt require physicians or health care providers to become educated in pain. It doesn’t improve the rights of people suffering pain. It doesnt improve access to needed treatments. The National Pain Care Policy Act is polite reformism and I regret it will do little to help people suffering pain.
I’m confused. It looks like you are now supporting H.R. 756, but I read that someone (in searches it appears to be you) saying it will add “billions of dollars.” That’s patently false, and the money (identified in the Senate version) specifically gives 4 million this year to the NIH to develop an educational program for the public, while ensuring that primary care doctors have the necessary skills, while not suffering the risk of harassment–and worse– from legal authorities. Now it seems you are advocating it? Please clarify.
Hi, Linda, To the best of my knowledge, I have never written any blog post stating that the National Pain Care Act would add billions of dollars – did you mean to the deficit?
In general I am posting about the progress of this bill as it moves along, to give readers an idea of what’s going on with it. While I’ve heard from pain doctors and patients that it really doesn’t go far enough to make a dent in the amount of suffering that many people go through, I do think that something is better than nothing in this case. At least there will be some kind of overall structure to recognize and address pain in a (hopefully) consistent way across the country. So that’s where I stand on that.
The post you read either was not written by me, or perhaps you mistook the information in my post about the Pfizer settlement (which puts 2.3 billion dollars back into the health care budget) for the one about the Pain Care Act. Here is the url for the Pfizer post:
http://backandneck.about.com/b/2009/09/07/every-little-bit-helps-pfizer-settlement-adds-2-3-billion-to-us-treasury.htm
I hope this clarifies. Thanks for speaking up and asking.
Anne
Today is March 22, 2010. Where does the Pain Care Act that was spoken about in Sept. 2009 stand now?
Thanks.
Debbie