This is so unconstitutional. A provision was added to the Senate Obamacare package, the effect of which would be to have the government in a public plan pay for Christian Science practitioners to provide prayer treatments to patients and/or prohibit private plans from refusing to treat such prayer sessions as a medical treatment. From the story:
Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.
The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist. The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual healthcare.”
If this story has it right, what is proposed isn’t the same thing at all as paying, say, a Catholic hospital to provide medical treatment. Surgery or ICU are medical treatments, whether or not they occur in a religiously oriented facility. Prayer treatments are religion.
Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against Christian Science or Religious Science, which also has prayer practitioners. Indeed, I have a friend who swears he was cured of asthma as a child by a Religious Science practitioner. But there is no way that the government should pay directly for a religious practice. Indeed, can you imagine the screaming if the law required a private insurance company or the government to pay the Catholic Church when a priest annointed an ill person with oil as a healing Sacrament? How is this any different?
November 7th, 2009 | 4:58 pm
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November 8th, 2009 | 4:51 am
The Eddyites have traditionally had a lot of clout in Washington. Eg, the Nixon Administration successfully lobbied Congress to extend copyright on “Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures” in response to lobbying by HR Haldeman and John Erlichment (both CS members).
November 8th, 2009 | 9:43 am
This is insane. Indeed.
But I wonder if anyone here will give some credit to the Democrats for passing the Stupak Amendment.
November 8th, 2009 | 3:25 pm
“This is so unconstitutional.” Requiring people to buy health insurance is fundamentally unconstitutional.
“[W]hat is proposed isn’t the same thing at all as paying, say, a Catholic hospital to provide medical treatment….” Wow! Even though your analysis is completely wrong, you’ve hit on an excellent point — one that no one else has brought up, so far as I’ve read, and that shows the total hypocrisy of this argument. Yes, taxpayer money will be going to different religious organizations, ie, Catholic hospitals, Lutheran hospitals, Jewish hospitals, etc.
If Christian Scientists don’t use medical services, then they shouldn’t be forced to subsidize medical care for those who do. Let them have a total exemption. Otherwise, it is only fair to reimburse them for their spiritual care; and it is, after all, a mere fraction of the costs.
November 9th, 2009 | 4:16 am
Paying priests to anoint the sick? Not a bad idea.
November 9th, 2009 | 5:31 pm
THE CHURCH OF MEDICINE, AND GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES?
Medicine is a belief system, a church! The hospital is its cathedral; the doctor, its priest. The Church of Medicine’s doctrine is materialistic reductionism; Richard Dawkins, it’s leading theologian. Big Pharma sits on it’s board, along with AIG. And this church wants every single American to be a dues paying parishioner, by law!
But in America we have this tiny snipet in our Constitution, called the ‘establishment clause’ which argues against such a move. It says government can’t do this. Yes, I know, many people who are already feeling over-billed for dues, want financial help from the taxpayers’ Central Committee. But there is always trouble when government blesses one belief system over others.
“Alternative medicine” is also a big church. It has many congregants, and spends billions on treatments which the AMA says are mostly phony, even dangerous; just look at how the AMA jammed chiropracty (google Flexner). But the consumer calls the tune, even if it’s heresy in the halls of medical seminaries. (Allowing government to bless one form of doctrine over another is, again, contrary to that Snipet.)
And then there are those conscientious objectors who say materialism is altogether unacceptable in spiritual practice. Their churches often name Christ as Physician. They avoid the mainstream denomination, Main Med. They mind their own minds, and pray their own prayers for recovery; and they seem to remain healthy and happy without joining the mainline church. (NB: free societies must accommodate conscientious objection if they are to remain truly free.) But if forced to pay dues to Main Med, shouldn’t those objectors be able to have that ‘insurance’ paid to their infrastructure, directing reimbursement checks to their own priests? The tyranny of the majority seems inclined to say NO. But what does the Constitution say, friends?
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