Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Center for Inquiry has started a campaign to get a "non-discrimination" provision that could very well require insurance companies to cover "alternative" medical treatments like faith healing taken out of the health care reform bills working their way through Congress.
. If the health care bills in Congress pass as they are currently written, a nondiscrimination clause will force all insurance plans that participate in the insurance exchange to cover treatments such as therapeutic touch, Christian Science prayer healing, or even Scientology E-meter readings, none of which have any proven medical benefits. This clause would also require both Medicare and any public option that to provide this coverage, providing for taxpayer and government funding of potentially religious treatments. If this happens, it would represent an egregious violation of the principle of separation of church and state.
Sec. 125 of HR 3200 says:
Neither the Commissioner nor any health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage through the Exchange shall discriminate in approving or covering a health care service on the basis of its religious or spiritual content if expenditures for such a health care service are allowable as a deduction under 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as in effect on January 1, 2009.
Sec. 213(d) of the IRS code covers Medical Savings Accounts and what kinds of medical expenses can be deducted if paid for out of such an account. It explicitly includes Christian Science Practitioners and "healing services" but Scientology counseling is explicitly non-deductible.
Go to the link above and you can send a message to your legislators telling them not to allow that provision to remain in the bill.
Politics
Comments
The Center for Inquiry argues that alternative treatments, "[no] proven medical benefits".
They don't know that. They can't prove that.
See the way it works is that by humans going through the act of committing people, money, and resources into research and the practice of medicine, God sees that we are feebly trying to "help ourselves". Because this amuses him, he therefore steps in and heals us, or not.
By taking out taxpayer-funded prayer, we're actually proving we don't want to heal people since we're taking God out of the healing business. Therefore, please beg your Congress-critters to mandate taxpayer-funded prayer prior to every medical "treatment".
First they take God and prayer out of the schools, now we're taking him out of the healing business, man. . .
This message was paid for by SARAHPAC after a generous donation by Dr. Kimberly Daniels.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 31, 2009 9:44 AM
More details:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/10/its_more_than_just_harkin_and_woo_christ.php
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/10/fight_the_intrusion_of_quackery_and_reli.php
Posted by: Orac | October 31, 2009 10:09 AM
Who's Dr. Kimberly Daniels? A quack?
Posted by: jws | October 31, 2009 10:17 AM
jws: Dr. Daniels just started the clock on her
151 minutesof fame. Here's a post by Ed from yesterday: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/10/halloween_is_eeeeevil.phpSince CBN took down the article Ed refers to in his blog post, here's another source for Daniel's actual article: http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/prophetic-insight/23723-the-danger-of-celebrating-halloween?showall=1
The article is a hoot.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 31, 2009 11:05 AM
Thanks for the heads up, e-mails sent... though you might want to take out the personal information that is in the link Ed.
Posted by: mxh | October 31, 2009 11:12 AM
Dr. Eades makes a good point here: sure, there's no good evidence that therapeutic touch, Christian Science prayer healing, or any number of other alternative remedies work any better than a placebo. But the same is true for commonly prescribed cough remedies, back surgeries to relieve pain, knee surgery to correct osteoarthritis, statin drugs to reduce risk of heart failure, and so on.
As Dr. Eades concludes: "If alternative medicines are going to be held to scientific standards, so should pharmaceuticals. Snake oil is snake oil no matter what its bottle it looks like."
It's a point Robin Hanson makes frequently at overcomingbias.com, and it's exactly right. People would be shocked to learn how many traditional western medical practices are unsupported by competent experimental evidence.
(On a related matter, this article on the flu vaccine is worthwhile.)
Posted by: maurile | October 31, 2009 12:55 PM
A quick heads up: The woomeisters are alert to this as well; I've already received emails from two acupuncture clinics and a "holistic healer" (whatever that is). Not sure why I'm on their list, but the junk emails folder is filling up.
Posted by: kehrsam | October 31, 2009 12:57 PM
Let's take a closer look at that legislative language:
Neither the Commissioner nor any health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage through the Exchange shall discriminate in approving or covering a health care service on the basis of its religious or spiritual content if ... etc.
That doesn't say that insurers can't discriminate against a health care service on the basis that there's no scientific evidence that it works.
If that language becomes law, then insurers should be able to refuse to pay for any form of faith healing, as long as there's no scientific evidence that it works.
What an insurer couldn't do is discriminate on the basis of religion between health care services. So an insurer couldn't, for example, approve Christian Science faith healing while refusing to pay for whatever kinds of faith healing are available in other religious traditions -- unless, of course, scientific studies started showing that Christian Science faith healing actually works.
That outcome seems fine with me, really.
Think of it by analogy to employment discrimination. Say you're a boss, and you fire an employee who is Christian. She brings a lawsuit claiming that you fired her on the basis of her religion. You respond by providing evidence that she was an ineffective employee and that's why you fired her. You win. The same logic would apply to insurers' approval of treatments if the legislative language quoted by Ed became law.
Posted by: Tom | October 31, 2009 1:48 PM
If one wants to be "prayed healthy", fine. It shouldn't cost the taxpayer anything. As far as I am aware, it doesn't cost anyone anything to pray...oh, unless there's a new class of professional prayers who charge MD type fees because they recite super-secret prayers geared to remedy specific conditions.
The Daniels piecs about demons attacking innocents through Halloween candy is both bizarre and funny. How sad that anyone is so paranoid as to manufacture an enemy to fight. Oh, well, more fun-size candy for me.
Posted by: SuznAZ | October 31, 2009 3:39 PM
SuznAZ @ 9 stated:
Several days to a few weeks ago Ed posted on Christian Scientists charging for prayers and lobbying to get those payments subsidized in the current health insurance reform efforts.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 31, 2009 3:42 PM
Maurile:
Just as soon as "prayer healing" is subjected to rigorous study for its efficacy--which will be NEVER--and proves to be as effective as, say, aspirin, I'll be all for it.
The other "woo" healing that you talk about requires some training (usually) and licensing (varies by state). The last time I checked any idiot--and an awful lot of them do--could pray.
Posted by: democommie | October 31, 2009 3:51 PM
Ed, I think both you and SuznAZ misunderstand Medical Savings Accounts. It's money that the individual saved. These are not taxpayer funds. They're not even insurance company funds.
This is a pro-choice argument, permitting individuals to use the funds they've saved for alternative therapies that they believe have efficacy to treat their symptoms. Even more importantly, it would permit individuals to use those funds for wellness treatments like health club memberships, yoga classes, vitamins and supplements, and massage. Why must all covered care be sick care?
And frankly, I don't understand why the "rational" community doesn't embrace this idea. If these people are just clowns believing in fantasies, they're playing with their very lives and will pay the price. It's Darwinism in action. If they're wrong, there will be fewer of them. Isn't that OK?
Posted by: Jim Babka | October 31, 2009 4:27 PM
democommie - actually there's been at least one arguably good study that provided empirical evidence that intercessory prayer, by people unknown to the patient they are praying for, did no good. In fact, the patients who were told that unknown people were praying for them did worse than those unknowingly receiving prayers did worse than the control group, where the control group had no intercessory prayer as a result of this experiment.
I say arguably because I think the sample size was too small to cover the sects within each religion. They should have increased the sample of Christians by having that number represent each major religion group given it left an old Christian canard open, "only my sect has the Innertubes open to God".
It would of course be great if more experiments like this were conducted, though of course there are already talking points to refute this sort of study to maintain avoidance of reality, e.g., "You can't trick God, he'll just not heal these people just to mess up your experiment" (which of course is senseless).
I'd say when we start empirically validating human limbs regenerating with no medical intervention we can start debating our considering subsidizing such amazing conduits to the supernatural.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 31, 2009 4:29 PM
Is this Nancy Pelosi's bill we're talking about? Because odds are the House is going to have a straight up-and-down vote, with no opportunity to make modifications or add amendments. This provision could be taken out when the Senate and House bills merge, but I am not optimistic.
Posted by: Brandon | October 31, 2009 4:47 PM
Jim Babka @ 12:
It's my understanding that MSAs are a method to tax defer planned future expenses for medical care that is already tax-deductible. Self-employed business people use these accounts to save money in advance so when its needed it's both there and we don't have to wait to get our tax deduction from it when used for a reason that's already health related and tax-deductible.
I'm one of those that have used them in the past though I'm not presently doing so. Amounts accrued are used for medical expenses like invoiced deductibles, items not covered by our lousy policies* (e.g., doctor's visits, routine tests, tests for non-hospital-related issues), or items even employer-covered plans don't include, like hearing aids over a nominal amount (my last set cost $6500 and last for five years, coverage normally maxes out at around $500).
Allowing woo into these plans does burden tax payers since this would allow woo-fans the ability to use non-taxed income to pay for their particular brand of woo. Why would taxpayers want to carry a heavier burden so woo fans can pay for tax-free prayers or an overdose of vitamins beyond what science tells us has any efficacy?
As long as we continue to tax wages and income, I'd argue that the only tax-free funds going towards health care should only go towards those items that have been empirically validated to work. I don't want my tax burden going up so Tom Cruise can write off his e-meter readings or Joe Schmoe can take way more CoQ10 or Folic Acid than any scientific study shows is helpful.
*Self-employed business people, which I am, are one of the biggest victims of how health insurance is currently adminsitrated in this country. The net effect is most of us pay high premiums with high deductibles and coverage only for catastrophic or chronic issues. Especially those of us aged 50 - 64. We are also almost always denied coverage on submitted claims even when the policies clearly state the item is covered since there are a large number of sheeple out there that will submit rather than fight; the motivation is big since if we end our policy, they've only lost one small set of customers.
It's amazing I have to go through these fights routinely since my family is extremely healthy and pay far more in premiums than we've ever even requested back in claims. I'd hate to see how these individual coverage plan administrators treat those with serious afflictions during their hour of need.
This is another example of the Democrats failing in their arguments. All the self-employed business people I know can't wait to get into a public plan since we all assume we'll stop having to fight over claims that are clearly within our coverage plans. That's the biggest aggravation we all face given we'd rather spend our time making money or recreating rather than fighting for coverage already contracted and paid for.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 31, 2009 5:10 PM
Dear Mr. Babka,
I think that the problem with using money from Medical Savings Accounts for prayer healing is not that the money is money which the individual saved. The problem is that it is money the individual saved tax free. So, yes, the government is subsidizing prayer healing to the extent that the government provided tax benefits for such payments through a Medical Savings Account.
Posted by: Scott | October 31, 2009 5:25 PM
maurile:
I didn't follow the links but I have no problem with that statement. Your last link to the Atlantic article though is very problematic (the link works, but the article seems to be crap). Effect Measure has dealt with it here and again here. Pandemic flu is not the same as seasonal flu in terms of epidemiology. Substituting one as a strawman for the other is poor reasoning when more relevant information is available.Posted by: MattK | October 31, 2009 5:31 PM
Brandon @ 14 - my Representative, Bart Stupak - MI-D believes he has enough votes to stop an up and down vote since he claims he merely wants stronger language to match the Hyde Amendment's prohibition for using taxpayer funds for abortions when in fact I think (not sure) that the Capp Amendment already goes beyond that. Rep. Stupak is a staunch anti-abortion rights proponent.
Stupak really wants to extend these prohibitions beyond the Capp Amendment (that's already in the House Bill). He claims he has forty-some Democrats in his caucus and can therefore stop any bill from passing unless he's satisfied. He's also threatening he will not relent unless there are some concessions. He claims he wants no ability for those getting subsidizes to get abortion coverage though he's so sly in how he frames his arguments, he leaves one with more questions than answers.
I think this is a mere bargaining position and he just wants to insure that no abortion coverage is built-into a subsidized premium - if so, that's an arguable position though not one I support. However, Rep. Capp appears to claim that's already true, so one of them is either lying or not communicating well enough for us to understand (I read her Huffington Post defense of he amendment and heard Stupak's argument on C-Span).
Essentially the argument from the Pelosi side is this: Tax-payers already subsidize abortions since most employer-provided health insurance plans cover abortion. Those plans are paid for with pre-tax money. The current House plan would insure that in the new exchanges where some lower-income citizens would get "affordability credits" that subsidized their premiums with federal funds, at least one insurer in the exchange and the public option would cover abortions. Stupak argues the affordability credits are essentially funding abortion coverage.
This is where it gets murky for me. I'm not sure if the Capp Amendment would force this coverage to be a tacked-on cost over the standard premium rate; if it is, then Stupak has no good argument since to get the coverage, the customer would have to pay a premium over their subsidized premium. The Capp Amendment already requires at least one private insurer in the exchange not offer abortion coverage (which goes beyond the Hyde Amendment restrictions), and requires at least one that does offer coverage which I think is fair given this coverage is easily procured in most employer-funded plans (I assume when Rep. Capp means "at least one" she means a private plan beyond the public option but maybe the public option meets the standard of at least one).
In essence and according to Stupak, Pelosi doesn't have the votes for an up and down vote. Deals will be debated, at least to get a vote.
We live in interesting times.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 31, 2009 5:33 PM
The Atlantic article is crap. Vaccines have a proven efficacy. The article refers to one outlier in the field and the reporters never bothered to validate his contra claims with the entire rest of the field that covers infectious diseases. I believe I read a proper fisking in the science-based medicine blog (Dr. Mark Cruslip's blog, though I'm not sure if he wrote that particular blog post since others blog there as well.). I think Revere at a ScienceBlog.com blog fisked the Atlantic article as well (can't remember his blog's name, but both should be easily searchable).
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 31, 2009 5:38 PM
No kidding, Micheal. I hate to point out what at least some Americans already know, but the US is insane. My country, meanwhile, is perfectly normal. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm about to put gravy and cheese curds on french fries, like normal people do. You weirdo.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | October 31, 2009 5:47 PM
Posted by: JThompson | October 31, 2009 6:07 PM
Re. Michael Heath, "my last set (hearing aids) cost $6,500..."
$6,500 for what? Are they powered by a micro-miniature nuclear reactor?
Excuse me but there is NO combination of electronics that presently exist in the unclassified world, that can fit into an ear-sized package, that justify that kind of cost.
Someone's getting ripped off and someone is making bank on it. That kind of price gouging needs to be investigated by Congress, and if medical device manufacturers don't cut the BS on their own, they need to be put on a short leash of federal price control.
Posted by: g347 | November 1, 2009 2:14 AM
Re. woo:
One way to get at this is to allow payments only to health care practitioners and facilities who/that are licensed before a state medical board. If such a practitioner routinely prescribes wooful nonsense and does not have a file full of documentable clinical outcomes to justify it, they could be investigated and have their license pulled. Ditto if it turns out that they have falsified the clinical outcomes in their files (that would be straight-up fraud).
Conversely, if it turns out that some kind of woo does indeed produce documentable clinical benefits, there's no good reason to not cover it. Somehow I'm doubtful, but rationalism entails empiricism, so let's leave the door open to actual results even if we expect there will be few to none.
Re. abortion:
Stupak's proposal will not just cut funding for abortion per se (about which more below). It will also forbid federal health money to be paid to ANY health services provider who/that offers abortions, REGARDLESS of who actually pays for the abortions.
That means if your city clinic gets private grants to pay for abortions, rather than taxpayer dollars, it is still ineligible to provide ANY health services via the single payer plan.
This was analyzed in detail on Daily Kos a few days ago, and the informed opinion was that it was intended as a means to kill Planned Parenthood.
So, speaking of the worst kind of woo, the enshrinement in federal policy, of the idea that a blastocyst that does not have a brain, has a mind, is right up there with the idea that the Sun orbits the Earth.
Here I am not making any claims with respect to the existence of nonexistence of a soul as defined by religion, that subject being beyond the reach of present empirical science. People are free to believe what they wish on that subject.
But if we want to take all the woo out of health care, we have got to start with this execrable garbage promoted by the anti-abortionists, that "life" begins at conception (in reality what they're after is "life begins at ejaculation"). It's not a human being until it has a functioning brain, period. And a blastocyst isn't a person, it's a BLOB.
Posted by: g347 | November 1, 2009 2:32 AM
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Posted by: macneillock | November 1, 2009 5:16 AM
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Posted by: macneillock | November 1, 2009 5:21 AM
g347: Even pro-lifers do not argue that a blastocyst has a mind (They save that for the embryo stage). Instead they argue that it's human, and thus killing it is murder.
The flaw in their argument can be traced to the selective definition of 'human' they use. They like to go for the purely genetic definition, because it fits into their pre-desired conclusion, when the appropriate definition for moral purposes should be based around mental capacity in some way rather than just having the right DNA.
But the wrong definition fits in better to their half-veiled crusade to stamp out non-marital sex, and so the wrong definition is the one they use.
Posted by: Suricou Raven | November 1, 2009 7:25 AM
Irradiating cancerous mass is MURDER!!eleventy-one!1!
(Well it's exactly the same [il]logic). :( - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | November 1, 2009 7:32 AM
Qwack, Quack, qwackqwack qwack.....
I predict Obama will sign ANY piece-of-shit that gets to his desk, and that the bill--whatever its final composition--will indeed be a mainly useless piece of shit.
Remember this: to the extent that the CorpoRat interests and the Xian/fascisti are NOT screaming their fucking heads off in rage, anger and betrayalto EXACTLY that extent they --the corpoRats and the Xion/Fascisti--are gonna fuck the rest of us...
Posted by: woody | November 1, 2009 9:03 AM
I'm totally with you, Ed, on the nonsense. I am a thoroughly evidence-based kinda guy. I am a big fan of Richard Dawkins, Simon Singh, James Randi, Eugenie Clark, etc. This is the preface for what I'm going to say next: I think we ought to let this one go, for now. I think that "Health Care Reform," as an issue is important enough, that we should save this particular item as a version 2.0 bug fix. I think it's important once and for all to establish health care as the right of every American, regardless of his means, and as a good for American society as a whole.
I am willing to bite my tongue and swallow a little quackery with health care reform. After it is in place for a few years, we could chip away at the quackery as a means of cost-reduction.
There is a risk here of fighting against something which is an overall benefit because of smaller details which become deal breakers for small, vociferous minorities. I have seen this before, back in the seventies with the ERA, for example. Smaller factions kept weighing in with their little pet peeves about it. These were combined, mutated, and spread around liberally. In the end, it fell 3 states short of ratification.
I say we keep our eye on the ball, get it done, and fix it up later.
Posted by: TGAP Dad | November 1, 2009 9:08 AM
Acupuncture and chiropractic care - love them both. "Nonsense" is such an inflammatory word.
Posted by: Andrea | November 1, 2009 12:01 PM
It's fine that you like them, but they don't work.* I do a lot of things (and pay people for services) that make me feel better, physically and mentally, even though they have no real tangible medical benefit. I tend to play video games when I'm sick, does that mean Gamestop should get taxpayer monies as part of a health reform bill? No.
*Or, to be more accurate, there is a substantial amount of evidence that indicates that they don't work, and little to no evidence that shows that they do.
Posted by: Kyorosuke | November 1, 2009 5:59 PM
There's another reason we should hold our noses and tolerate the woo provision:
It will make it impossible to deny abortion.
Denial of abortion will amount to discriminating against a procedure on religious or spiritual grounds, favoring Catholics et.al. over everyone else. Thus any provision to deny abortion will be in conflict with the woo provision. And the constituency for woo is much larger than the constituency that is hardcore antiabortion.
So, perversely enough, woo comes to the rescue. At the same time as it helps tidy up the gene pool by darwinizing idiots! Wow, a two-fer!
BTW, about acupuncture and chiropractic: Acupuncture is viable as a means of local anaesthesia, and the US military are presently looking to integrate it into field medicine for this purpose. Chiropractic has a limited range of indications for which it is helpful, involving lower back pain. The fact that some practitioners of each of these run around quacking it up, doesn't render those limited applications invalid, any more than Hubble being a priest invalidated his Big Bang theory.
Posted by: g347 | November 2, 2009 1:47 AM
the US military are presently looking to integrate it into field medicine for this purpose
I'm so glad I retired nine years ago. The mind boggles at the thought of a corpsman slapping a handful of acupuncture needles into the back of a wounded Marine while waiting for the medevac helo.
Posted by: Shay | November 3, 2009 8:35 PM
You have your facts mixed up: Edwin Hubble was not a priest, but Georges Lemaître, the first scientist to propose the Big Bang theory, was. Your point does follow (Lemaître's faith did not invalidate the theory), but credit where credit's due.
Posted by: Mr. B | November 3, 2009 9:03 PM
I am a practicing Christian Scientist and my family has successfully relied on spiritual healing for five generations now. My intent in posting this comment is not to “pitch” my preferred system of healing to those who depend on other types of health care, but to explain why I feel it is important that there be a provision for spiritual healing in any forthcoming healthcare legislation.
It would seem fundamentally unfair for someone to be required to pay for insurance that does not cover the type of healthcare he or she utilizes. In a policy climate where some form of mandated universal coverage appears likely, it would only seem fair that anyone required to pay into a system would have coverage for the type of health care that they have found works best for them (without depriving anyone else of their choices). If the individual mandate to buy insurance does not provide for those who rely on qualifying spiritual care, they may receive no benefit for their premiums.
While Christian Scientists normally choose a path other than conventional medicine, this choice is not based on blind faith. It instead reflects a systematic approach to prayer that has proven to be reliable and effective in the lives of those who practice it.
I appreciate this opportunity to provide a different perspective on this issue. Anyone interested in learning more about Christian Science healing may wish to check out the website www.ChristianScience.com.
Posted by: radcs | November 5, 2009 12:33 PM
Kyorosuke: You're wrong.
g347: An amendment to exclude abortion from the public option is being inserted into the bill: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/07/health.care/index.html
Posted by: Andrea | November 7, 2009 10:00 AM