I'm pretty sure they're not refering to normal daily aches and pains. Treatment (or lack thereof) of chronic pain is a real problem for the medical profession. And I've got firsthand experience; my wife suffered from literally constant crushing migraines for several years in a row, effectively turning her into a bedridden invalid most of the time.
We learned the hard way that doctors are happy to try to fix what's wrong with you, but if they can't, a lifetime prescription of painkillers is simply *not* an option no matter how much pain you're in. Due to concerns about "painkiller addiction", or side effects from long term use, no reputable doctor (not even the ones at the dedicated pain management centers) is willing to allow a patient to take effective painkillers for more than a month or two, tops. After that, the official approach is, "sorry, no more, you'll just have to learn how to tough it out as best you can with Tylenol."
Is painkiller addiction a legitimate concern? Perhaps, but in the same manner that people undergoing famine are "addicted" to food. When you're in constant unbearable pain, you're damned right you're going to be be saying, "give me drugs, NOW..."
As for the risks of long-term use, I can't see that they can be any worse than the effects of long-term chronic pain, which, like a natural form of continuous sadistic torture, can and does easily drive people insane or to suicide. My wife was close to both on many occasions, and I couldn't blame her.
We also naturally came into contact with other chronic pain sufferers (back injuries seem to be a frequent cause) who shared their experiences with us and we're we're hardly the only ones to have discovered the same things about how poorly the medical profession deals with such problems. Even the few doctors who would prescribe sufficient painkillers if they were free to do so have their hands tied by stringent regulations under which they could lose their medical licenses if they departed from them -- and oversight is strict.
I've got *years* worth of stories I won't bore you with. But while European healthcare is inferior to American healthcare in many ways, it is superior in at least one way: doctors there are generally much freer to prescribe larger doses of painkillers, and for longer periods, and do -- and without evidence of the kind of Dire Consequences to patients presumed by the American attitudes towards the prescribing of painkillers.
I would definitely support congressional action to loosen medical regulations on this matter, because it's the pre-existing federal regulations which are the primary problem, and need to be overhauled.