Action Alert! Fight Senate Bills Requiring You to Pay for "Spiritual" Health Care!
New Health Care Bills Promote and Subsidize Faith-healing!
September 30, 2009
Dear FFRF Members:
We received the following timely request for help from Rita Swan, director of Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD), based in Iowa, about unconstitutional action which Congress is poised to take to require medical insurers to reimburse for "religious or spiritual health care." This is in capitulation to the Christian Science lobby and is hidden in amendments in two Senate bills (read the language of these amendments below). According to Rita, the IRS allows Christian Science prayer to be deducted as a medical expense! Can you help stop these unconstitutional and dangerous amendments? Read Rita's message and our brief Talking Points below, and then please:
Contact:
1) Senate Finance Committee
Chair: Senator Max Baucus
511 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-2651
Fax: (202) 224-9412
E-mail form
Senate Committee On Finance
219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510-6200
Phone: (202) 224-4515
Link to committee members
2) Your Senator
Find/Contact Your Senator
3) Make this the subject of a short letter to your local editor
Updated as of Oct. 17, 2009:
Prayer fee mandates are now in both the U.S. House and Senate health care reform bills. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has placed this mandate in HR3200: "Section 125. PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH CARE SERVICES BASED ON RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL CONTENT. 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."
A second mandate is in S.1679, the Senate HELP Committee's health care reform bill: "Section 3103(a)(1)(D). PROGRAM DESIGN The essential benefits provided for in subparagraph (A) shall include a requirement that there be non-discrimination in health care in a manner that, with respect to an individual who is eligible for medical or surgical care under a qualified health plan offered through a Gateway, prohibits the Administrator of the Gateway, or a qualified health plan offered through the Gateway, from denying such individual benefits for religious or spiritual health care, except that such religious or spiritual health care shall be an expense eligible for deduction as a medical care expense as determined by Internal Revenue Service Rulings interpreting section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as of January 1, 2009."
Rita's message:
The Senate Finance Committee is currently debating Senator Baucus' America's Healthy Future Act of 2009. The Kerry-Hatch amendment C-14 titled "Religious Non-discrimination in Health Care" to the Baucus bill prohibits insurers from denying "benefits for religious or spiritual health care" if the "religious or spiritual health care" is "an expense eligible for deduction as a medical care expense as determined by Internal Revenue Service Rulings interpreting section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as of January 1, 2009."Senate Bill 1679, known as the Affordable Health Choices Act, which has already passed the U.S. Senate HELP Committee, includes Section 3103 (a)(1)(D). It requires insurers to reimburse for "religious or spiritual health care" that is "an expense eligible for deduction as a medical care expense as determined by Internal Revenue Service Rulings interpreting section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as of January 1, 2009."
For several decades the Internal Revenue Service has allowed bills sent by Christian Science practitioners for their prayers to be a tax-deductible medical care expense. This is bizarre, but certainly does not prove that Christian Science prayer heals disease. To our knowledge Christian Science prayer is the only prayer that the IRS allows to be deducted as a medical expense.
Christian Science church founder Mary Baker Eddy told the spiritual healers to "make their charges for treatment equal to those of reputable physicians in their respective localities" (First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 237). These treatments consist only of prayer. In 1989, Christian Science healer Mario Tosto charged parents $446 for two days of prayer-treatment for an 11-year-old Minnesota boy with diabetes. The boy, of course, died.
The measures in the U.S. Senate health care bills have the government not only allowing payments to unlicensed providers, but requiring them. Moreover, the government is requiring insurers to pay bills sent by one church's faith healers. And finally, these measures will bolster the Christian Science church's argument that its prayer "treatments" are and should be a legal substitute for medical care of sick children. All of these aspects are very bad.
We would be very grateful for FFRF's publicity of these provisions in the U.S. Senate health care bills and whatever you can do to mount opposition to them.—Rita Swan/CHILD Inc.
Talking Points
To Senate Finance Committee (feel free to copy and paste):
Kill the unwise and unconstitutional Kerry-Hatch amendment C-14 to Senator Baucus' America's Healthy Future Act of 2009, with its misnomer title, "Religious Nondiscrimination in Health Care." Congress should not condone prayer as a substitute for medical evaluation and treatment, much less subsidize it for one religious sect! The children of Christian Scientists, who could have been saved by medicine, have died because their parents relied on Christian Scientist "faith healers." These irresponsible religious sects teach that it is a sin to take an ill or dying child to a medical doctor. It is a "sin" not to get medical care in such circumstances. Congress must not encourage medical maltreatment of dependent children. Nor should legislation be passed to benefit one religious sect. Keep religious dogma out of government!
To Your Senator
Please work and vote against any amendments to Senate legislation that would require insurers to reimburse for so-called "religious or spiritual health care" (prayer as a substitute for medical evaluation and treatment). Please oppose Section 3103(a)(1)(D) of Senate Bill 1679, which has passed out of committee and is up for debate. S. 1679 requires insurers to reimburse for so-called "religious or spiritual health care." The Kerry-Hatch amendment C-14 to Senator Baucus' America's Healthy Future Act of 2009 (now in the Senate Finance Committee), with its misleading title, "Religious Nondiscrimination in Health Care," is also unwise and unconstitutional. Congress should not condone prayer as a substitute for medical evaluation and treatment, much less require its subsidy for one religious sect! The children of Christian Scientists, who could have been saved by medicine, have died because their parents relied on Christian Scientist "faith healers." These irresponsible religious sects teach that it is a sin to take an ill or dying child to a medical doctor. It is a "sin" not to get medical care in such circumstances. Congress must not encourage medical maltreatment of dependent children. Nor should legislation be passed to benefit one religious sect. Keep religious dogma out of government!
Amendment Text
America's Healthy Future Act of 2009, Senate Finance Committee, Title I, Subtitle B, Kerry/Hatch Amendment C-14, "Religious Non-Discrimination in Health Care," September 22, 2009
“Description of Amendment: There shall be a requirement that there be non-discrimination in health care in a manner that, with respect to an individual who is eligible for medical or surgical care under a qualified health plan offered through a State Exchange, prohibits the Administrator of the State Exchange, or a qualified health plan offered through a State Exchange, from denying such individual benefits for religious or spiritual health care, except that such religious or spiritual health care shall be an expense eligible for deduction as a medical care expense as determined by Internal Revenue Service Rulings interpreting section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as of January 1, 2009.”
Affordable Health Choices Act, S. 1679, Sec. 3103(a)(1)(D), September 17, 2009
“The essential benefits provided for in subparagraph (A) shall include a requirement that there be non-discrimination in health care in a manner that, with respect to an individual who is eligible for medical or surgical care under a qualified health plan offered through a Gateway, prohibits the Administrator of the Gateway, or a qualified health plan offered through the Gateway, from denying such individual benefits for religious or spiritual health care, except that such religious or spiritual health care shall be an expense eligible for deduction as a medical care expense as determined by Internal Revenue Service Rulings interpreting section 213(d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as of January 1, 2009.”
(For more info or to send blind copies of your letters, contact Bonnie Gutsch at bgutsch@ffrf.org)
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