Healthcare Reform Might Cover Prayer
Posted: Friday, November 06, 2009
by Yamileth Medina
VitalOne Health
With healthcare reform moving ever closer to reality, supporters and
opponents are scrambling to add and subtract provisions. The Senate may
take longer to vote than its House of Representatives counterparts, but
debate is still going strong. Majority Leader Harry Reid is mediating
battles over the public option, cost, illegal immigrants, abortion
coverage...and prayer? Yes, apparently there is a clause in the Senate
Finance and Health committees' versions of the bill that would require
health insurance plans to provide coverage for "religious or spiritual
health care", including prayer services. Such a provision brings up
multiple questions. Mandated coverage has the potential to drive up
premiums for questionable results. If it passes, such care would be
also included in the public option, possible opening the government up
to legal problems.Also, these types of religious treatments open the federal government up to potentially costly charges of religious discrimination. Although the requirement would only apply to those health insurance plans participating in the proposed insurance exchange, it is still risky. A public option that covers prayer may violate the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment, which states that the government cannot promote one religion or absence of religion over another. Even in the private health insurance market, consumers with other religions or no religion at all will resent that their health insurance plan is subsidizing another faith. Supporters of the separation between church and state, including atheists, would have a good chance at convincing the ACLU to take the case. The government, though, could argue that--since there is no religious preference for coverage and patients are allowed to choose what, if any, religion to recieve treatment under--it should pass legal muster. It would probably end up an issue for the Supreme Court to decide. Other critics believe that requiring reimbursement for such "pseudoscience" will result in greater waste in our health care system. It could also create a slippery slope for other religions to receive public funding. Initially, the money spent on spiritual treatment will be small because the Christian Science church has relatively few members. Later on, however, America's major religions could create various treatments for their tens of millions of adherents, which insurers will also be forced to cover.
So who is responsible for sneaking this provision into the Senate's health reform bill into the first place? It was a joint effort; Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, along with Democrats John Kerry and the late Ted Kennedy, sponsored the amendment. Hatch's support is surprising, since there is virtually zero chance that he will vote for reform. Kennedy may have had his own personal reasons, but he and Kerry were/are representing Massachusetts--the state that's home to the Christian Science church lobbying for coverage of its treatment. However, Kerry denies that religious and spiritual care must be covered under his amendment; rather, it would only prevent discrimination by health insurance plans against legitimate medical expenses (as deemed by he IRS) if they also happen to be spiritually-based. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi removed similar proposals from two House of Representatives commitee bills, fearing that they are unconstitutional. On the other hand, Reid is noncommittal about the future of prayer coverage in his bill.
(Image: GettysGirl under CC 2.0)
Yamileth Medina is an up and coming expert on Health Insurance and Healthcare Reform. She aims to help people realize that they don't have to go without a health insurance plan while waiting for a public option, if it ever gets passed. Yamileth lives in Miami, FL.
This Article has been viewed 103 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Great! Our Buddhist meditation center could certainly use some funding :)
Best..............eVery interesting! I'm more of a skeptic, but I feel every little bit helps. Meditation has the potential to help a lot when it comes to mental health and relieving stress. It could prevent some medical conditions.Buddhist Meditation is a technique, it doesn't necessarily have any religious connotation or significance beyond the fact it was developed for that purpose. It can be used secularly without worry of any religious implications.Thank you for your comment. I can definitely see how meditation may help. Stress causes a lot of health problems.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.