News Release and Action Alert: Great News From the House of Representatives!

Pressure Still Needed on Health Care Bill in Senate

October 30, 2009

News From Rita Swan, director, Children's Healthcare Is A Legal Duty:

"The mandate to reimburse religious and spiritual health care has been removed from the House bill, HR3962, the merged bill that is going to the floor. We are thrilled! Thank you for your letters and calls to Congresspersons. We will definitely thank FFRF in our next newsletter for your hard work on this.

We still have to win in the Senate, but I have a good feeling that momentum is on our side. Of course, this prayer-fee mandate was such an extremely ridiculous idea in the first place. Surely it is unconstitutional for the government to force payment for prayer."

FFRF is delighted that the unconstitutional and dangerous amendment has been removed from the House health care reform bill, that would have forced medical insurers to reimburse Christian Scientists for faith-healing and other forms of so-called "spiritual care." But the Senate, votes next week on its health care reform bill, with a similar amendment.

This is an urgent matter! Please call immediately and send messages to your Senators (and letters to the editor to local papers—more background and talking points below). The House of Representatives has responded to pressure. Don't let the Senate ruin this great victory for the separation of church and state!

Talking Points

Talking Points to Your Senator (Feel free to cut and paste): Please oppose the unwise and unconstitutional Section 3103(a)(1)(D), “Program Design,” of Affordable Health Choices Act, Senate Bill 1679, which requires insurers to reimburse for so-called "religious or spiritual health care" (prayer as a substitute for medical evaluation and treatment). Congress should not condone prayer as a substitute for medical evaluation and treatment, much less require its subsidy for one religious sect! Children of Christian Scientists, who could have been saved by medicine, have died because their parents relied on "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 and the government should not be forcing taxpayers or insurance companies to pay for prayer and other religious rituals. Please remove this irresponsible mandate from S. 1679, and from future health care reform bills.

Contact

Your Senator
Find/Contact Your Senator
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Local Newspapers

More Background

We have been working with Rita Swan, director of Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD), based in Iowa, to end the unconstitutional action that Congress is poised to take to require medical insurers to reimburse for "religious or spiritual health care." This could become law unless legislators kill an amendment hidden in a Senate health care reform bill, Affordable Health Choices Act, S. 1679, which is currently in the process of being merged with other health care reform bills. This Senate health care reform bill includes an amendment that will force medical insurance companies to reimburse Christian Scientists for using "religious or spiritual care" instead of providing medical treatment! The Christian Science lobby is leaning on its members across the country so freethinkers must counteract this powerful, wealthy lobby. Can you help stop this unconstitutional and dangerous amendment from making it into the final merged health care reform bill?

Too many children have died at the hands of "faith-healers." This amendment will only help bolster the Christian Science efforts, and undermine the separation of church and state. Government has no place mandating insurance companies to reimburse for this “faith-healing” fraud!

Rita wrote: “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. The amendment in this bill has 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. 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.”

Please help defeat this unconstitutional and dangerous amendment by immediately e-mailing or phoning your members of Congress!