The Legislature is considering a package of bills designed to ensure that patients in intractable pain have access to credentialed, comprehensive pain centers when local care cannot provide adequate relief. Opposition to the bills has come largely from insurers, business lobbies and state bureaucrats who argue that the legislation will raise costs. But unnecessary and ineffective care imposes far greater costs on business and government, as well as the people who are disabled by pain. Twenty-three million operations are performed annually in pursuit of pain control. Too often, costly and invasive procedures are performed before conservative, less expensive and more appropriate treatments are tried.
Pain corrodes the spirit and quality of life.
For cancer patients, pain destroys any semblance of a comfortable, productive existence. For young and otherwise hardy people, pain jeopardizes earning potential and destabilizes marriages. Recent research suggests that the ability to fight off other illnesses, including cancer, amy be compromised by persistent pain. Unlike the treatment of more straightforward conditions, treatment of intractable pain requires the confrontation of both the pain and its critical links to mind, mood and suffering. Patients with complex, persistent pain disorders rarely respond to single therapies.