Government finally says “no” to woo in healthcare

There has been much controversy and worry over the original healthcare reform bill, HR 3200, containing a provision that mandated public funds be used to pay for pseudo-medicine and quackery such as “Christian Science” practitioners and the likes. You know, the sort of “doctors” who believe that prancing around and uttering meaningless incantations and dousing you in oils and rice and whatnot counts as actual medicine. Let’s get one thing straight: patients have the right to choose whichever forms of medicine they want – evidence-based, or silly woo. But do not expect me, and the general population, to provide money to support these quacks and charlatans. This is exactly what the previous healthcare bill did.

Thankfully, this has been changed. The latest incarnation of the bill, HR 3962, does not contain coverage for religious woo.

Today, the House of Representatives released a version of the health care reform bill that does not require private and public health plans to cover spiritual care, including reimbursements to Christian Science practitioners who pray for members when they are ill.

In addition to being a disturbing transgression against actual medicine and efficient healthcare, allowing coverage for crap like “Christian Science” would also have been a complete violation of Separation of Church and State:

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. "Their actions demonstrate that common sense secular values are being heard in the halls of Congress. ... If this language had been included, tax payers would be forced to help foot the bill for this religion-based care offering no scientific evidence of effectiveness."

Exactly. Medicine and healthcare, as with education and government and pretty much anything else that’s open to the general public, needs to stay absolutely secular. We cannot allow religious crap to contaminate good medicine, or else … well, it just wouldn’t be good medicine anymore. In short: if you want to be treated with spiritual energy, or homeopathy, or anything that doesn’t have a basis in actual science and evidence, fine by me. Do what you will. But expecting others to pay for it is a violation of more than Separation of Church and State; it’s a transgression against common sense, period.

(via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)