Luna del'Corvo

I have no problem with letting anyone be prayed over by whomever they wish. However, we have people in this country dying every year (in the thousands) of easily treatable conditions because insurance companies will not pay for treatments, when we have millions not insured at all, when insurance companies are often not required to cover birth control! Where are those funds to come from? What other expenses should insurers deny so they can afford to cover prayer treatments?

And where does it end? Even assuming such a thing would pass (which I hope I am safe in saying will never happen) do you think in a million years it would ever be extended to any type of 'prayer' other than Christian? Or that it should? And when Christianity (or any other religion) is in the position of dispensing sanctioned medical treatment, what then? What about the people whose children die because their parents think it's legitimate to send them to priests rather than doctors? Once prayer is legitimized by a bill like this, how do we prosecute people like this (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23882698/) or this (http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20091008_Faith-healing_parents_charged_in_death_of_infant_son.html) or this (http://oregonfaithreport.com/2009/10/details-emerge-over-faith-healing-death-of-child/)? It's already difficult to protect these kids because of the "free practice of religion;" if we hand these folks insurance coverage to this crap, we are effectively writing these kids off.

I have no words for the depth of wrong in this. As with so many things to do with religion, where it is a singular, personal choice - OK, believe what you like. This is like a far more extreme repeat of "abstinence-only" education - Bullshit it's not part of a religious agenda, and no, it simply does not work. But this; it's beyond egregious....