Posted on 12/05/2009 6:46:55 PM PST by delacoert
Should health insurance companies cover prayer as a legitimate medical expense?
The Christian Science church is seeking to insert a measure in the Senate’s health care legislation that would encourage private insurance companies to cover prayer and spiritual treatment of the sick, even though both the House and Senate turned down earlier versions.
...
The church’s provision says that any insurer offering health insurance on the exchanges that would be created in the health legislation could not discriminate against a health service “on the basis of its religious or spiritual content.” Such content would be defined as medical expenses for which the Internal Revenue Service now allows deductions. The I.R.S. specifically names Christian Science practitioners, who pray for people at a cost of about $20 a day or care for them in nonmedical ways, as deductible expenses.
(Excerpt) Read more at prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I know it's incredibly naive of me... this country is so full both religious scam artist and senseless people who willingly hand-over everything from their money to their eternal soul... somehow it still surprises me that prayer practitioners charge money and the I.R.S. allows it as legitimate expense.
OTOH if you want some prayer cover - just mail me $20.
Could I be FR’s official international prayer Czar? Please?
Someone should keep a list of all the mandates different groups are trying to sneak into the bill for specific items. Wasn’t there one about mammograms this week?
What does global warming have to do with the health care bill?
Umm... Is this a trick question?
The book of Acts talks about a man who tried to pay for spiritual results. It didn't go well.
Orrin Hatch and the Swimmer. Well, that ought to tell us about everything we need to know.
When the democrat senate memo was leaked as to how they were plotting to undermine Bush and the WOT, I’ll never forget the whipped puppy look on Orrin Hatche’s face when he stood there with Rockefeller. And the republicans were in the majority of both houses at that time.
And as we know, the rest is history.
Utah, is this the best you can do??!!
Christian Science practitioners have always charged for their prayer treatments, since way back in the 19th century, when the state of medicine was such that it was pretty much a toss-up whether you were better off with a medical doctor or a Christian Science practitioner. The church requires training and certification to become a practitioner, so it’s not like somebody can just join the church and start charging for prayer treatments.
Given the well-documented concrete effects of placebos handed out by medical doctors, who charge a heck of lot more than $20 for a 5 minute consultation in which they scribble out a government-required prescription for what’s often a placebo (and which costs the patient more money on top of the office visit fee), there’s objectively no reason why Christian Science practitioner treatments shouldn’t be tax deductible. It’s sort of a moot point anyway, because the church could find a way to structure these payments as donations to the church, which would be tax-deductible as donations to a non-profit organization.
Seriously, I suspect that the tax deductions for Christian Science treatments end up costing taxpayers a lot less than if these patients went for real medical treatment. Many of the believers are elderly and chronically or terminally ill, and are paying $20 a pop for prayer treatments, instead of going for Medicare-funded treatments that would cost taxpayers hundreds of times more.
Catholic People who have the gift of healing will pray for you for no money at all. We know that when someone is healed our reward is in heaven.
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