CONGRESS PLAYS DOCTOR WITH PAIN RELIEF ACT

HOW to explain two Congress members' sudden surge of compassion for the
dying? Both want to thumb their noses at Oregon's assisted-suicide law, and
they've found a nice way to do it. Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and Sen. Don
Nickles, R-Okla., are chief sponsors of the "Pain Relief Promotion Act of
1999," which affirms the legal medical practice of administering controlled
substances for pain management and palliative care. As a postscript, it
mentions that the federal government gives no weight to state laws that
permit assisted suicide or euthanasia.

This bill isn't worth passing, despite support from the American Medical
Association and the National Hospice Organization. The AMA adamantly
opposes assisted suicide, and hospice likes the national plug. More
revealing is the opposition from leaders of the state medical associations
in Washington and Oregon, who rightly fear a chilling effect in the
doctor-patient relationship.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year the right to die is a states' issue.
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno decided the feds would not prosecute
doctors who give lethal drug doses under Oregon's assisted-suicide law. The
moral quagmire surrounding physician-assisted suicide remains, but the
legal grounds around end-of-life decisions are getting solid.

The daily decisions regarding pain control, quality of life and dignified
death are intimate and complicated, and should be left to patients and
their state-licensed doctors. They do not belong to DEA agents or to
politicians in Washington, D.C.

Hyde, Nickles and other federal meddlers mistakenly assume the world of the
desperately ill can be divided into neat categories: terminally ill people,
people who qualify for hospice, people who aren't quite ready for
palliative care. This boxlike thinking encourages supposedly helpful
federal rules that actually hurt patients. For example, Medicare doesn't
cover hospice care until death is "imminent," which is why the national
average duration for hospice care is a mere two weeks, and why patients
suffer needless pain waiting to qualify for relief.

Nickles and Hyde are two adamant opponents to assisted suicide. That is
their personal right. But their repeated attempts to play doctor,
pharmacist, detective and cop go far beyond their job descriptions.