Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The latest version of health care reform in the House, HR 3962, does not contain a provision mandating coverage for Christian Science practitioners or other forms of faith healing and pseudo-medicine. The previous bill, HR 3200, did include such coverage.
Shirley Paulson, a Chicago area Christian Science practitioner, said people should have the freedom to choose whatever works."To me it's just another option," she said. "If we're all going to help each other in this it would be better for everybody to have more options ... The medical people would be the first to say they don't solve everything ... So many people came into Christian Science because the medical world didn't help them."
Absolutely, it's another option. Take that option if you choose. But don't expect me to pay for it.
Sean Faircloth, executive director of the Secular Coalition for America, the national lobby for atheists, agnostics, humanists and freethinkers, hailed the decision as a victory for common sense."Requiring American taxpayers to reimburse Christian Scientists and other religious sects that deny themselves and their children necessary medical care would have been incredibly unethical in addition to a violation of church state separation," Faircloth said. "Their actions demonstrate that common sense secular values are being heard in the halls of Congress. ... If this language had been included, tax payers would be forced to help foot the bill for this religion-based care offering no scientific evidence of effectiveness."
Exactly right.
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Shirley Paulson, a Chicago area Christian Science practitioner, said people should have the freedom to choose whatever works.
Um, no, the US Government has the OBLIGATION to spend OUR money on what is PROVEN to work, and not waste it on unproven woo.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 5, 2009 9:32 AM
Well, Shirley, begging an invisible sky fairy for help does not work. It has, in fact, been shown to make things WORSE! So are you going to be shutting the fuck up now? Or will you continue to revel in your cult's idiocy, and demand that WE pay for it?
Posted by: phantomreader42 | November 5, 2009 9:56 AM
Why does Sean Fairclouth hate AmeriKKKross?
Posted by: democommie | November 5, 2009 9:59 AM
The mentally defective Shirley Paulson states:
No one is depriving anyone of that right with this bill's passge not including this amendment. So-called Christian Scientists have access now and they'll have access after the bill is passed. If Ms. Paulson wants to broaden access her denomination's members can finance such an initiative. It would be bad policy and unconstitutional for taxpayers to pay for religious woo that does not work and in fact risks avoiding medical care that does.
I would think my above reaction would be mind numbingly obvious, yet not so obvious that the Chicago Tribune actually challenged Ms. Paulson's comment by responding to Ms. Paulson's statement with a follow-up question relative to my point. Seems that the writer of this Trib piece is too busy on some sort of personal quest she's foregone practicing journalism.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 5, 2009 10:00 AM
What cost? I thought spiritual help was free. Otherwise it isn't spiritual!
Posted by: Rodney | November 5, 2009 10:00 AM
Rodney:
"What cost? I thought spiritual help was free. Otherwise it isn't spiritual!"
reminds me of a conversation I had with a welldigger once. I asked him how he found water. He said he dowsed for it. When I asked him what that "service" would cost, he said he couldn't accept payment for it, as that would cause him to lose the gift. I never knew him to offer a rebate on the time spent digging deeper than he had told a client that he would have to--or digging more than one "dry" hole.
If praying makes folks feel better that's fine. I personally think sex with an attractive, and female, "sexual healing" counsellor would do wonders for my erecto/depressive condition.
Posted by: democommie | November 5, 2009 10:11 AM
There is nothing unconstitutional at stake here. Medicare currently pays for a number of Christian Science services. The only question is whether the expanded bill should. Even there, the question is not whether religion is involved, but does it work.
The government's proper stance with regard to religion is neutrality, not active antireligion.
Posted by: kehrsam | November 5, 2009 10:39 AM
Exactly. This is the only thing that matters. Let's put Christian Science prayer to the test with a double-blind study. If there is evidence that it works better than placebo, I will gladly support covering it under any health care plan. If if doesn't prove to be effective, then people can still do it but pay for it themselves. The religious aspect is completely irrelevant.
Posted by: catgirl | November 5, 2009 10:52 AM
" Medicare currently pays for a number of Christian Science services."
So, is there any evidence their specific brand of quackery works?
Posted by: dean | November 5, 2009 10:52 AM
The problem with this is Kehrsam, I haven't seen any evidence that these provisions are in any way neutral. They either already provide special status to some religious beliefs, or were attempting to (this example).
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that if I were traditional, and were to become ill, go back to the res and have the family shaman cook me up a potion to help my illness, whether it worked or not, it wouldn't be covered by medicare.
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 5, 2009 11:37 AM
Hello from the healer
Its about engaging your emotions in heart felt high frequency actions, words and deeds. Doing so will create an electro-magnetic reaction attracting your pure light source-self (the true you that can watch your physical self in an accident or from a coma state or realized through astral-projection experiences) into full alignment with your physical self.
This week is about truly understanding what thoughts help change your body and its sense of wellness and how you can help shape your energy system and how its acting. You command your reality! And the more you move into alignment with yourself, the more what you speak, comes into being.
Posted by: energetic healing | November 5, 2009 11:47 AM
Well, even with this removed, remember, we have a Prez more willing to shovel $$ at faith-based shinola than Bush was.
Posted by: SocraticGadfly | November 5, 2009 11:55 AM
For the health of my soul, will the government reimburse me for all the indulgences I must buy?
Posted by: mark | November 5, 2009 12:07 PM
Good news, Ed. Now if Congress will just vote to strip the funding from Tom Harkin's pet lunatic asylum and use that NCCAM money for real research.
Posted by: Shay | November 5, 2009 12:09 PM
Okay, "energetic healing," if you want the taxpayers to pay for all that, you'll have to provide an itemized invoice stating exactly what, in all that clearly non-material remedial action you speak of, is actually being paid for; and point us to valid studies that prove it's effective.
Same question for the CS and their BS: if your "treatment" consists of nothing but prayer, then what, exactly, are you expecting a public health-insurance plan to pay for? Are you really going to send the government a bill that places an exact dollar value on prayer? Or is your talk about "more options" just a poorly-devised bluff?
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 5, 2009 12:16 PM
Shirley Paulson, a Chicago area Christian Science practitioner, said people should have the freedom to choose whatever works.
So, require all reimbursable treatments demonstrate that "whatever works" to at least 1 standard deviation above placebo.
That way, there's no question of discrimination against religion, merely discrimination against the inept. After all, while atheists would be astonished to encounter such a thing, I don't suppose they would object to paying for provable results if some religious healer turns out to have a channel from God that works reliably.
Oh, I suppose we ought to allow reimbursement of techniques within ±1 standard of placebo to be reimbursed at the cost level of placebo administration. (Anything more than one sigma below placebo in effectiveness should probably be banned.) Thrice-daily sugar pill, plus monthly fifteen minute consultation with a minimum-wage actor playing a doctor should work out under $5 per month.
Posted by: abb3w | November 5, 2009 12:47 PM
dogmeat: Yes! By all means test the efficacy before we start paying for treatment. abb3w is on the right track.
When I was very young, one of our regular baby-sitters was a Cherokee woman who was reputed to be a "healer." Didn't stop us from catching all the childhood diseases, though.
Posted by: kehrsam | November 5, 2009 12:58 PM
I don't like the idea of my taxes being used to subsidize other people's religions, or some scam-artist's quackery, either.
But here's my worry about rules against paying for "spiritual healing," CAM, and other forms of woo: I can easily see these rules used to deny coverage against any treatments deemed "experimental." Insurance companies have historically used this designation to bail on paying for a lot of science-based treatments (including many that frankly are experimental). How do you keep the bright line between paying for one and not the other (bearing in mind that utter knuckleheads may be interpreting the guidelines)?
______
Energetic Healing -- I'm sorry, are you a Poe?
Posted by: Molly, NYC | November 5, 2009 2:20 PM
Molly, NYC:
Your concern is exactly the opposite of what these folks want. They want to charge money for "treatments" that have not (in any meaningful way) and will not likely be subjected to the rigors of scientific investigation as to their efficacy.
The experimental treatments that insurance companies routinely deny are the expensive ones. Many of those treatments have gone through clinical trials and been approved for use by the competent authorities.
It's really apples and oranges.
Posted by: democommie | November 5, 2009 2:35 PM
Posted by: llewelly | November 5, 2009 2:44 PM
Democommie - I hear ya, but how are the differences going to be enforced?
Posted by: Molly, NYC | November 5, 2009 3:34 PM
You may say I'm a dreamer (or an overgrown baby).
Posted by: Johnny Clamboat | November 5, 2009 3:53 PM
"If a man, being ill of a pus appendix, resorts to a shaved and fumigated longshoreman to have it disposed of, and submits willingly to a treatment involving balancing him on McBurney's spot and playing on his vertebra as on a concertina, then I am willing, for one, to believe that he is badly wanted in Heaven. And if that same man, having achieved lawfully a lovely babe, hires a blacksmith to cure its diphtheria by pulling its neck, then I do not resist the divine will that there shall be one less radio fan later on."
--- Mencken, on chiropractic
Posted by: anon | November 5, 2009 3:55 PM
democommie "I personally think sex with an attractive, and female, "sexual healing" counsellor would do wonders for my erecto/depressive condition."
Possibly, but I hardly think it will do much for her.
Raging Bee "...if your "treatment" consists of nothing but prayer, then what, exactly, are you expecting a public health-insurance plan to pay for?"
You don't want them to pay for just any prayers, do you? Do you have any idea how much damage a low-quality prayer can cause? Are you trying to antagonize the Lord?!
Posted by: Modusoperandi | November 5, 2009 5:21 PM
The problem is, this solution isn't viable. abb3w was, I believe, being more than a little sarcastic in his/her(?) comment. We don't see any evidence that prayer, etc., work, but Christian based prayer "treatments" are approved for medicare and are the subject of attempts for approval with this measure while other, possibly actually useful treatments are denied based solely on faith and a special status for Christianity.
I'm not saying that a root herbal tea from a medicine man or healer works, I'm saying that the government is not adopting a neutral position but instead has an established Christian bias while paying for woo.
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 5, 2009 7:06 PM
Agreed.
Posted by: kehrsam | November 5, 2009 7:19 PM
What about including a provision for paying for placebos for people that a qualified medical doctor determines need some minimal psychological trickery to get them to stop using up other medical resources, and then allowing prayer as a placebo as long as they agree it's a placebo? You could throw in a requirement that the prey-ers have some level of medical training so they can send their patients back to the medical doctor under circumstances where medicine is better than placebo, and serious penalties for not doing so.
Posted by: Emu Sam | November 5, 2009 8:02 PM
Anon's Mencken quote reminded me that the faculty/staff health plan at my university covers chiropractic; my adviser goes to a chiropractor; and she's a professor of statistics specializing in experimental design!
Everyone who thinks it's absurd to mandate coverage for Christian Science "practitioners" should read Mark Twain's Christian Science -- and encourage his or her representative and senators to read it.
Posted by: JPS, FCD | November 5, 2009 9:33 PM
modusoperandi@24:
"Possibly, but I hardly think it will do much for her."
You've been talking to my ex?
Posted by: democommie | November 6, 2009 3:03 AM
Let's just say I've been making shit up. It's not my fault if some of it ends up being true. I'm like FoxNews. You're a "D", right? Because I've been marking you down as one on the "...Senator Democommie (D) disgraced..." scroll.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | November 6, 2009 4:33 AM
dogmeatib: The problem is, this solution isn't viable. abb3w was, I believe, being more than a little sarcastic in his/her(?) comment.
I realize this solution might be better characterized as "lethal" than "viable" for those who choose such alternatives, but I wouldn't consider my suggestion sarcastic; merely snide.
dogmeatib: We don't see any evidence that prayer, etc., work
Well, since they also don't do measurable harm beyond placebo treatment, they ought to be an approved treatment choice for patients who insist on it... reimbursed comparably to placebo costs. Which, as I note, is under $5/month including consultation costs — rather less than the present reimbursement level I suspect. And, which I will add, is small enough to be difficult for snake-oil woo-pitchers to make a living off of, which might cut down on their numbers a little. (Not to mention that the taxpayers often wouldn't be paying for such patients being thus treated long.)
Posted by: abb3w | November 11, 2009 1:38 PM