reposted from TIME MAGAZINE

Thursday, May. 14, 2009

Should Universal Health Care Cover Faith Healing?

By Amy Sullivan

Lobbying may be the one remaining recession-proof industry, and as Washington prepares for a summer-long debate over how to reform health care, lobbyists for every conceivable interest group have camped out in congressional anterooms to press their case. There are advocates for doctors, insurance companies, patients, nurses, pharmaceutical companies, big business and small business. And for faith healers too.

Of course, they wouldn't call themselves "faith healers." They argue that the term dismisses what they do as simple wishful thinking. But practitioners of Christian Science as well as other alternative therapies — including acupuncture, biofeedback, herbal medicine, holistic medicine and Reiki, a Japanese healing and relaxation technique — are intent on influencing the coming health-care-reform process. "We're advocates for people who want access to spiritual treatment," says Phil Davis, a Christian Science practitioner and his church's chief lobbyist. Their goal is to encourage Congress to think of health care as more than just medical care — and to allow insurance companies to provide coverage for their holistic treatments. The Christian Scientists have had some success in this area in the past. Founded in 1866 by Mary Baker Eddy, the Church of Christ, Scientist has worked for nearly a century with state licensing boards and legislatures to obtain recognition or acceptance for its practitioners, who treat injured or ill individuals by praying for them. Contrary to popular belief, Christian Scientists are not prevented from seeking medical treatment; the church just wants to make sure that both members and nonmembers are also able to afford visits to practitioners, which typically cost from $20 to $30 per session, and longer-term services of private nurses (who provide nonmedical care such as bathing, dressing wounds and feeding) and nursing facilities. TRICARE, the military health plan, already covers these services. And the Federal Employee Health Benefits program provides partial reimbursement for stays in Christian Science nursing facilities. More recently, Christian Scientists were able to obtain a special provision in the universal health-care plan enacted in Massachusetts, where the church is headquartered. In addition to exempting Christian Scientists from the requirement that all Massachusetts residents carry health insurance, the state allowed private insurer Tufts Health Plan to cover both medical and spiritual care, including stays at church nursing facilities. If the church could design a universal health-care plan for the country, it would allow — but not require — insurance companies to provide coverage for practitioners, nurses and nursing facilities. During the 1980s, when fee-for-service plans were more prevalent, Davis says Christian Scientists had riders that allowed them coverage with more than 300 carriers. But with the rise of health maintenance organizations (HMOs), they have found it more difficult to convince insurance companies to cover their "spiritual care."

Some critics of Christian Science and other alternative treatments worry that accommodating such healing methods could open the door to a wide range of questionable therapies. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa is all too familiar with such slippery-slope objections. Long a proponent of alternative therapies, he chaired a hearing in late February on integrative care and health reform that featured practitioners of holistic medicine and other alternative approaches; his support has been vigorously opposed by scientists who believe that investment in alternative medicine is a waste of funds. In March, the Washington Post reported on an effort to shut down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, a pet project of Harkin's (annual spending on alternative medicine at NIH makes up about $300 million of the $29 billion overall budget).

So far, President Barack Obama has expressed willingness to at least consider a role for alternative therapies in universal health care. But the standard he has set will be tough for many of these therapies — including Christian Science — to meet. At a town-hall meeting in Missouri last month, an acupuncturist asked whether Obama believed alternative medicine should be part of health care. "My attitude is that we should do what works," Obama responded. "I think it is pretty well documented through scientific studies that acupuncture, for example, can be very helpful in relieving certain things like migraines and other ailments, or at least [be] as effective as more intrusive interventions. I will let the science guide me." Of course, Christian Scientists would prefer he let faith do some of the guiding too.

5/27/09

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