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Should Government Insurance Cover Faith-Based Treatment? |
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Written by Don Byrd
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Friday, 30 October 2009 |
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The Chicago Tribune's Manya Brachear points out that the House version of health care reform just announced does not include reimbursements for certain faith-based treatments. And, she asks, should it?
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 ... So many people came into
Christian Science because the medical world didn’t help them."
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.
Here's a question I don't know how to answer (and hoping an informed reader will save me the research!): Does Medicare/Medicaid cover any or all of treatment in this direction? For all the discussion of health care reform, it's not as if we don't already have a functioning government-run insurance program. Would a new health exchange option treat faith-based care any differently than those systems already do?
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