Index for HR3962: Affordable Health Care for America Act

To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.

Mr. Dingell (for himself, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Waxman, Mr. George Miller of California, Mr. Stark, Mr. Pallone, and Mr. Andrews) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, Education and Labor, Oversight and Government Reform, and the Budget, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

(a) Convening.—Not later than June 30, 2011, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall seek to enter into an agreement with the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies to convene a Conference on Pain (in this section referred to as “the Conference”).

(b) Purposes.—The purposes of the Conference shall be to—

(1) increase the recognition of pain as a significant public health problem in the United States;

(2) evaluate the adequacy of assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and management of acute and chronic pain in the general population, and in identified racial, ethnic, gender, age, and other demographic groups that may be disproportionately affected by inadequacies in the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and management of pain;

(3) identify barriers to appropriate pain care, including—

(A) lack of understanding and education among employers, patients, health care providers, regulators, and third-party payors;

(B) barriers to access to care at the primary, specialty, and tertiary care levels, including barriers—

(i) specific to those populations that are disproportionately undertreated for pain;

(ii) related to physician concerns over regulatory and law enforcement policies applicable to some pain therapies; and

(iii) attributable to benefit, coverage, and payment policies in both the public and private sectors; and

(C) gaps in basic and clinical research on the symptoms and causes of pain, and potential assessment methods and new treatments to improve pain care; and

(4) establish an agenda for action in both the public and private sectors that will reduce such barriers and significantly improve the state of pain care research, education, and clinical care in the United States.

(c) Other appropriate entity.—If the Institute of Medicine declines to enter into an agreement under subsection (a), the Secretary of Health and Human Services may enter into such agreement with another appropriate entity.

(d) Report.—A report summarizing the Conference’s findings and recommendations shall be submitted to the Congress not later than June 30, 2012.

(e) Authorization of appropriations.—For the purpose of carrying out this section, there is authorized to be appropriated $500,000 for each of fiscal years 2011 and 2012.