Multiple private foundations, professional associations and non-profits have funded an important array of palliative care investigations whose results are just now beginning to change the way such care is rendered. We cite these many initiatives and educational efforts to demonstrate that the medical and health care community has responded to a need. We urge this Subcommittee as strongly as we know how to resist the temptation to undo this hard work by creating a new federal watchdog to second-guess treatment decisions. The sponsors appear to be responding to a specific situation in Oregon and seeking ways to short-circuit what most of us would characterize as an unethical medical practice. But by choosing this route, they may well harm the very people who they are trying to help, not only in Oregon, but in every other state in the Union.
Physicians write potentially lethal prescriptions every day.
A hundred tablets of Dilaudid, prescribed legitimately for pain control, can be used by the patient to cause death. This is out of the physician's direct control, but could raise concerns under this bill. Further, under the terms of H.R. 4006, aggressive drug therapies for pain management will become automatically suspect. Physicians are only human and will go to great lengths to avoid a Department of Justice investigation as would anyone. There is no question but that H.R. 4006 would affect physician decision-making and have the perverse effect of chilling appropriate palliative care .