House panel votes to kill pain rules, database

By Jim Saunders
03/10/11 © Health News Florida

A top House committee today voted to eliminate state regulations on pain clinics, repeal the drug database law and stop doctors from dispensing drugs.

The votes by the Health and Human Services Committee put the House at odds with a Senate committee, which Wednesday started moving toward approving new rules for pain-management doctors.

The Senate Health Regulation Committee introduced a bill that would ratify clinic rules approved by the Florida Board of Medicine. The House bill would eliminate such regulations.

"There's no doubt that the Senate and House have very different approaches,'' said former Sen. Dave Aronberg, special counsel to Attorney General Pam Bondi on the pill-mill issue.

House HHS Committee members voted 13-5 to approve the bill dealing with dispensing and regulations, despite objections from an orthopedic-surgeon group and the state's former top drug-policy official. The measure on the drug-database repeal, as suggested by Gov. Rick Scott, passed on a similar 12-5 vote.

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