Senate health-care bill would cover prayer-based treatments
With all due respect to the Christian Science Church, this is a bad idea:
“Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.
The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.
The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual healthcare.”
It would have a minor effect on the overall cost of the bill — Christian Science is a small church, and the prayer treatments can cost as little as $20 a day. But it has nevertheless stirred an intense controversy over the constitutional separation of church and state, and the possibility that other churches might seek reimbursements for so-called spiritual healing.”
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305 comments Add your comment
Stan
November 3rd, 2009
4:48 pm
Call your Congressman and Senators and DEMAND that vote against this bill! This is a horrible idea! This sounds like something W would have tried to sneak through!
Note: I’m against this health insurance reform thing anyway but this is as good a reason to get in a twist as any
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
4:51 pm
There go those liberal Democrats, imposing their religious agenda on the rest of us!
//sarc//
Maybe this is being done to define the boundaries of church-state support or cooperation?
Or maybe some see it as part of nontraditional medicine that can have a place in efficacious treatment?
Matilda
November 3rd, 2009
4:55 pm
I have two issues with this: (1) I thought prayer was supposed to be given freely out of love, not sold as a service or commodity, and (2) If your child is lapsing into a diabetic coma, and instead of rushing her to the hospital, you gather the neighbors and pray over her, and she dies from lack of treatment (true story), I hope you rot in jail, you sanctimonious freak. But that’s just my opinion. Not judging.
Brad Steel
November 3rd, 2009
4:55 pm
All the respect due to Christian Science health care is none. But $20/day will keep be a great deal for the insurance companies – low cost treatment that likely ends in death.
Certainly, this provision was drafted by the insurance lobby.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
4:57 pm
Wait a minute…
wasn’t the curtain torn? I don’t get billed for my prayers.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
5:00 pm
@@
You didn’t get billed? Once I was asked to lead a prayer at church. The minister made sure I paid for it…
Common Sense
November 3rd, 2009
5:01 pm
I “pray” this bill doesn’t pass.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:03 pm
Promoting Christian Science quackery as clinical medicine is a reprehensibly stupid idea, and note that the Christian Scientists bestow royalty on people like Cruz and Trevolta who give them millions.
That’s what Conference is for–hopefully to strip out stupidity but often it doesn’t.
One of the most important aspects of the final House Bill is that unlike the Senate bill it stands up to the pharmaceutical bills and puts Rahm Emanuel’s egregiously stupid deal with Big Pharma in the dumpster where it belongs. The House Bill adopted Waxman’s promise to fix the egregious crapfest GOP led by Dr. Bill Frist passed in 2003. It would force Big Pharma to pay $140 million, but it has the provision the pharmaceuticals and their hookers all fear–it would close the Medicare Part D Donut with new rebates to cut prices for low income seniors and would stop the egregious GOP provision that forces seniors to pay the full cost of their meds when they reach $2700 until they get to $6100. The result is that a high percentage of seniors go without vital medication for serious chronic diseases like congestive heart failure, asthma, and angina.
The House Bill would close this Medicare Part D donut but unfortunately not until 2019 which by my calculation is ten years from now.
Most importantly, the House Bill would do what Big Pharma fought tooth and nail. It would put Medicare on the road to solvency instead of being in the red in about 7-8 years because it would allow competitive bidding for drugs by Medicare just like Emory Health Care and Piedmont Hospital do it via consortium. Hopefully this will survive Conference.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:04 pm
Paul:
Was it an intercessory prayer for the minister. My minister, a really good sport, asked if I wanted to lead a committee in prayer once. “No thanks! I do mine in the closet.” was my reply.
jewcowboy
November 3rd, 2009
5:04 pm
I need quite a bit of retail therapy. If I get someone ordained by a church to agree, can I get reimbursed for the recent therapy I had at Theory and Barney’s?
jewcowboy
November 3rd, 2009
5:06 pm
Brad Steele,
“low cost treatment that likely ends in death.
Certainly, this provision was drafted by the insurance lobby.”
Is the healthcare plan the Republicans were holding up during Obama’s healthcare speech to Congress?
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
November 3rd, 2009
5:07 pm
I think bookman could use a few prayer treatments.
No matter who pays for them.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:09 pm
Real Case Horror Stories going on now: Stories of Struggle http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/02/health/INSURANCE_VOICES.html?ref=health
Much of the debate about health care reform focuses on people who don’t have insurance. But as Karen Barrow explores during the latest Patient Voices series, even people with insurance coverage are struggling with bills, confusing policies and red tape.
Six men and women share their experiences with health coverage and insurance issues. You’ll meet Tasha Huebner, 41, who found dealing with the insurance company worse than dealing with breast cancer. “With insurance, it was always a big surprise, what are they going to deny next?” she says.
Once she called her insurance company to find out why a $5,000 surgery bill had been denied. She was told it was because she had one too many nurses in the operating room during her surgery. “At that point I hung up on my insurance representative that I was talking to,” she says. “I didn’t even know what to do with that.”
Zoraida Reyes, 46, is a small business owner who was forced to cut health insurance, including her own. “I work six days a week, and I can’t afford insurance,” she says. “You can imagine the people who have a lot less than me, they’re probably worse off.”
And there’s Carl Arrington, 58, who lost his health insurance after his Internet company closed. Instead of paying for health insurance, he decided to invest in his health, changing his diet and exercising more. “If you’re in your 50s or 60s and you don’t have medical insurance and you don’t get it through your employer, it’s going to cost you two or three thousand dollars a month. With that kind of money I could see a doctor every week.”
Adrienne Schroeder, 31, has high-deductible health insurance through her husband’s job but is saddled with medical debt as a result of four pregnancies in six years, including two that ended in miscarriages. “Since we have insurance we should not be worried about having a baby or having a miscarriage and be stressed about how long it takes to pay it off,” she says. “Our daughter is near 18 months, and we’re nowhere near paying off these hospital bills.”
To hear these and other stories about health care coverage problems, listen to the full multimedia feature, “Patient Voices: Coping With, and Without, Insurance.”
Jay
November 3rd, 2009
5:10 pm
Option, I think you’ve confused Scientologists with Christian Scientists.
They are two very different groups.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:11 pm
GOP’s Boehner says that news flash: He will come up with a “plan.” It used to be you’d look to comedians to provide the humor. Now the GOP has morphed into one big Comedy GOP central.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
5:12 pm
@@
Naw, was just a wisecrack.
But I did mention once, when they were having a ruckus here over prayers at football game, what the reaction would be if the student began praying “O Mighty Odin, Give us your power to destroy our enemies…” or maybe if they wanted to sacrifice a goat or something.
Gov’t Option
{{Promoting Christian Science quackery as clinical medicine is a reprehensibly stupid idea}}
I’m trying to figure out, are you a liberal or a conservative? Can’t quite put my finger on the open-minded, accepting, live and let live aspects -
jewcowboy
November 3rd, 2009
5:13 pm
“is saddled with medical debt as a result of four pregnancies in six years, including two that ended in miscarriages”
Condoms are cheaper than having children as are vastectomy’s.
Shawny
November 3rd, 2009
5:14 pm
The govt cant do anything right. This is one example of tons that have now driven this bill to the north side of a trillion dollars. Stop it. It is bad, and we do not need this type of healthcare “reform”.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:14 pm
jay, you were pretty eager to expose this little detail in the bill. Got anymore you’d like to supply? Some of the hairballs belonging to the dems, maybe?
Cough ‘em up, jay!
jewcowboy
November 3rd, 2009
5:16 pm
“The govt cant do anything right”
I like that screwball plan of the Interstate Highway System…that turned out pretty well.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:18 pm
Cough ‘em up, jay!
I’ll hold.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
5:18 pm
@@
[[Some of the hairballs belonging to the dems, maybe?]]???
Uh, check the names of the cosponsors. And check the political affiliation of those who voted for it.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:18 pm
Yes you are 100% correct Jay. My bad. Ron Hubbard’s fakes vs. Mary Baker Eddy’s.
Christian Scientists believe that any medical condition can be healed by prayer theoretically. While they don’t explicitly forbid medical treatment they strongly try to displace it with prayer. Much of what happens depends on the individual Christian Scientist–some will accept medical treatment along with praying.
I don’t know if there have been series matching particular diagnoses with choices made by Christian Scientists, but I’d be surprised if there hadn’t.
Kamchak
November 3rd, 2009
5:20 pm
But I did mention once, when they were having a ruckus here over prayers at football game, what the reaction would be if the student began praying “O Mighty Odin, Give us your power to destroy our enemies…” or maybe if they wanted to sacrifice a goat or something.
I would have no problem with that–if the prayer and sacrifice was performed far enough in advance of the game to allow for a sufficient marinade.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:21 pm
Tit for tat, Paul.
‘Kay ‘Kay.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:25 pm
ChattyWick:
I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Gettin’ it in is only half the battle. Gettin’ it right? That’s what matters.
jewcowboy
November 3rd, 2009
5:25 pm
You’re right Kamchack,
Don’t they do that already, but its a cow and pig. But really who knows what are in hot dogs. It could be goat.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
November 3rd, 2009
5:26 pm
Amazing the ways we find out about Christians praying for people to get well right after we heard how they want to kill everybody.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:27 pm
@@–
I coughted this up so you can chew on it. It’s huge and it’s in the final House Bill. Hopefully it will survive Conference. It’s a present to you from California’s Henry Waxman, Chairman of House Energy and Commerce and it crushes the egregious deal swung in a secret White House meeting by Rahm Emanuel and the Senate Finance Six who represented 2.2% of the US population.
It’d be interesting to see @@’s analysis of the little cough up I just served up to her where the colossal Medicare Screwup engineered by the GOP and Dr. Bill Frist, thoracic surgeon at Vandy pushed through the Senate signed by Junya which pushed Medicare to the brink of bankruptsy in about 7 years and causes a phenomenal percentage of seniors not to afford their medicine for significant illnesses and undergo considerable morbidity or mortality. It happens every day.
As I said, this provision pushed by Waxman promininetly in the House final bill crushes the pharmaceutical Hooker’s in @@’s party and the Blue Dog hookers by closing the egregious Medicare Part D Gap which forces low income seniors to pay out of pocket costs of all drugs in Medicare Part D between $2700 and $6100 resulting in their going without medications or having to shoose between a roof over their heads, food, or medication.
Further, in the biggest blow to the pharmaceutical johns who own a lot of GOPsters and Blue Dogs it would allow Medicare to bid for all their meds, just like Piedmont, Emory Healthcare, St. Joe’s, Northside, CHOA Pill Hill, CHOA Eggleston, and every other private hospital in the country by using leveraged bidding of powerful coops. This is what caused Medicare to be headed for the Red in 7 years, and I see it brought up here all the time but what I never see is a Republican who admits that they own all the responsibility for passing that legislation that First pushed in 2003 for his pharmaceutical masters.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
5:28 pm
Report/Whine 5:26
Zing! And he scores!
getalife
November 3rd, 2009
5:28 pm
Wingnut pork.
Geez.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:30 pm
It seems to me that witholding medicine including diagnosis as well as treatment, and substituting only prayer is a great way to get people killed.
Shananeeeeee Fananeeeeeee
November 3rd, 2009
5:30 pm
FRAUD-BAMA. Change in 2010 and 2012, Change we are looking forward to.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:31 pm
“Amazing the ways we find out about Christians praying for people to get well right after we heard how they want to kill everybody.”
Substituting prayer alone for cutting edge clinical medicine is an excellent way to kill people.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:33 pm
ChattyWick:
I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Gettin’ it in is only half the battle. Gettin’ it right? That’s what matters.
It’d be great if you conveyed an understanding of the health care bills above and beyond the kids you teach. I don’t see it here.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:34 pm
ChattyWick:
You talk a lot about hookers and johns. Have a lot of experience in that area, do you?
Is your last name Smith?
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:34 pm
@@–
How ’bout that Medicare Part D Donut and Competitive bidding in the House bill? Of course you knew about it–you just didn’t get around to mentioning it obviously. And how about those six case studies I posted. You have suggestions for those patients?
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
November 3rd, 2009
5:37 pm
In fact, up to 15,000 elderly people with cancer in the UK are dying prematurely every year when compared to the rest of Europe and the U.S., according to a report published by the North West Cancer Intelligence Service (NWCIS) which compiles cancer statistics. . . .
A major concern is that the NHS Cancer Plan, introduced in 2000 to improve cancer survival in the UK, has a cut-off point at 70. This results in hospitals having less interest in the elderly. “Yet half of all those diagnosed with cancer are over 70,” says Dr Tony Moran, NWCIS research director. “It’s an area that has been grossly neglected. . . .
Just think, all these people have is a prayer.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:37 pm
ChattyWick:
You appear to be a very angry individual. Always angry.
Always.
Can’t conceive of how anyone could get to where you are, emotionally speaking.
That’s ^^^ not me asking you to share. I don’t wanna know.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:38 pm
I know your party has more hookers and johns than any escort service not to mention Vitter, Larry Craig, the congressman in federal prison, Randy Duke Cunningham, and GOP CIA stalwart headed for prison Dusty Foggo.
Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff, and Ralph Reed helped run a teen age hooker john operation in the Marianna Islands.
Seems that hooker-john is a staple of the GOP or as I fondly call them Repuboputzokins who are in an increasingly shrinking tent led by Palin, Faux, and Beck where you get 90% of the crap you paste like the 111 “new bureaucracy” delusion.
AmVet
November 3rd, 2009
5:39 pm
Sad.
Even obvious nutjobs from the Middle Ages are afforded the same standing as 21st century science.
I just pity the children with the enormous misfortune to be born to such religious fruitcakes.
Perhaps they’ll be spared the leeches…
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:40 pm
There’s a big difference between anger and presenting striaght facts and more in a nanosecond that gives insight into healthcare or bills and being a ditzy teacher who pastes from Faux. I do the former, and you @@ the latter.
Anytime you want to pull 111 new bureaucracies that you ditzily claimed from a Faux website that is in the House Bill (that doesn’t exist) you go for it girl.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
November 3rd, 2009
5:41 pm
@@- Mad Harris is a democrat, you were expecting him to be jovial?
All of them are angry and full of hate, what do you think the basis for this blog is?
Someone saw a chance to sneer from his cubicle in the windowless Politburo building.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:42 pm
60% of the country is so dumb they aren’t vaccinating their kids, and should there be mutation, it will be murder. A high percentage of them are GOPsters and wingnut extremists.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:43 pm
…and Chad?
I didn’t read your six case studies.
In all honesty, when I see your posts, I give ‘em a quick look to see if you’re angry. If you are (always) I move past.
If one encircles themselves with angry people, they become angry.
If one encircles themselves with negative people, they become negative.
If one encircles themselves with depressed people, they become depressed.
Occasionally, everyone encounters one of the above….but EVERYDAY?
No thanks.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:44 pm
It seems that the whackjob crackpots here who thought Palin should lead the country conflate being factual and educated with anger.
You can always tell them because they paste from Faux and trash sites; none of what they paste has any basis in reality, and they make broad brush stroke claims that don’t exist like the “111 bureaucracies” because it was all the buzz of Faux and wingnut whackjob websites. “If ah read it on Faux it must be true” says @@.
“Donuts are what cops eat” says @@.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
5:44 pm
Back to Jay’s question….
Is a treatment methodology that seeks to improve a medical condition eligible for taxpayer support, even though its primary (not sole) advocates are members of a religious organization?
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:45 pm
@@–
I learned years ago when people bring the stupid chronically for years, you aren’t going to educate them, and they stay stupid and die stupid.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
5:46 pm
Gov’t Option
[[60% of the country is so dumb they aren’t vaccinating their kids, and should there be mutation, it will be murder. A high percentage of them are GOPsters and wingnut extremists.]]
So many assertions. Sources for them?
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:46 pm
There’s a helluva difference between a quack modality that seeks to improve a condition and a clinical medical modality that has been tested by double blind studies in tertiary medical centers that actually does improve a medical condition. Seems like a lot of the wingnuts here like Orin Hatch can’t tell the difference.
AmVet
November 3rd, 2009
5:47 pm
Wow. Looks like the flat earth foot dragging ostriches have thrown in the towel.
Hysterical. The little crybabies are gonna take their bats and go home…
Washington (CNN) — Republicans boycotted a Senate committee hearing Tuesday on a major bill to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
Only one of the seven Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio — showed up for the panel’s opening session. He left the meeting after delivering an opening statement.
Committee rules require at least two minority party members to be present to reach a working quorum. However, an exception could allow the committee to proceed without any Republicans, according to committee staff members.
Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for the committee’s Republicans, told CNN that applying the exception would be a “nuclear option” by Democrats that would worsen the panel’s already strained political climate.
In his remarks, Voinovich asked the committee to hold off its debate until getting a full Environmental Protection Agency analysis of a bill that he said would affect every American.
The committee chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, responded that the panel has held dozens of hearings on the issue, and that she had taken the unprecedented step of scheduling a session with EPA experts later Tuesday to answer any questions by committee members.
Boxer also said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, has promised the full EPA analysis sought by Republicans before the bill comes before the entire Senate.
When the hearing proceeded, Voinovich left the room, leaving only Democratic members at the table.
Boxer said the panel would continue to meet, including the session with EPA experts later Tuesday.
“We’re going to just be here every day until they join us,” she said. She also criticized the Republican boycott, saying, “The reason they give to not work on it just doesn’t hold up to the light of day in fairness and objectivity.”
The committee’s 12-member Democratic majority ensures enough support to send the bill to the full Senate without any Republican support.
The House has already passed a similar bill, but Senate approval is considered a much tougher challenge for Democratic proponents of the “cap-and-trade” legislation that would contribute to reshaping the U.S. energy system.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
November 3rd, 2009
5:49 pm
Uh oh, the dimocrats are talking up global warming again, better get out you snow plows and fill up your salt trucks.
Soothsayer
November 3rd, 2009
5:51 pm
U.S. dumps China for Mexico
“The index showed that China, once the lowest cost supplier … has now dropped to number three in LCC (low-cost countries) rankings, behind India and the new number one, Mexico,” according to the AlixPartners 2009 Manufacturing-Outsourcing Cost Index.
Manufacturing in Mexico costs around 68%; in India around 73%; in China, near 86% and in Brazil close to 91%, compared to costs in the United States.
Matilda
November 3rd, 2009
5:52 pm
“It seems that the whackjob crackpots here ………. conflate being factual and educated with anger.”
I noticed this as well.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
5:52 pm
Gov’t Option
“Seems like a lot of the wingnuts here like Orin Hatch can’t tell the difference.”
Does that include the wingnuts like John Kerry? Or the late Edward Kennedy? You know, the cosponsors? And what about those other wingnuts who put it though, like Nancy (what’s her last name???) or Harry, Harry… Reid! That’s it! Harry Reid!
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:53 pm
@ Paul–
Scratching his head and slapping his forehead Paul queried:
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
5:46 pm
“Gov’t Option
[[60% of the country is so dumb they aren’t vaccinating their kids, and should there be mutation, it will be murder. A high percentage of them are GOPsters and wingnut extremists.]]
So many assertions. Sources for them?”
You betcha. I was quoting the Harvard School of Public Health that actually has 60% of adults refusing them and between 50-60% of adults refusing to vaccinate their kids. And in a lot of studies the numbers are higher. Currently Georgia is at a vaccination rate of less than 20% of all Georgians. Not good. Dangerous.
2009 Releases
Survey Finds Just 40% of Adults “Absolutely Certain” They Will Get H1N1 Vaccine
Boston, MA–In a new survey, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that just 40% of adults are “absolutely certain” they will get the H1N1 vaccine for themselves, and 51% of parents are “absolutely certain” that they will get the vaccine for their children.
Enjoy Paul. Date 10/2/09
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2009-releases/survey-40-adults-absolutely-certain-h1n1-vaccine.html
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
5:58 pm
As of the 23rd day Fulton county’s clinics had vacicnated 700/5300 doses for 13.2%, At 8 clinics, that calculated out to 3.8 vaccines per day per clinic.
While it is true that some people waited for their physicians to get the vaccine in either forms, the majority of places that have ordered the vaccines don’t have any, and Fulton has no shots yet.
They can be found, but it isn’t particularly easy.
The turnout has been disappointingly low across the country, and particularly in Georgia, even in areas like Fulton where Medimmune Nasal mist is plentiful right now and free and can be used for individuals not pregnant, not immunosuppressed, without serious concomittant illnesses up through age 49.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
5:58 pm
ChattyWick:
I’m betting you haven’t read any of the health care bills, much less the one that’s making its way thru. I’ll admit I haven’t. Saw no need until the finished product — then there’s limited time before the vote. I gave you page references. You’re free to confirm or deny, but not before doing your research. My plan is to pick some at random and try to decipher the legalese.
You need SOMETHING to do, Chad. Something besides hanging on this blog. It’s destroying your perspective on life.
You flit from H1N1, to the health care bill, to Sarah Palin, to Orly (whatever the heck her name is), to some woman named……
can’t remember her name either, but she was on the Freedom Tour.
Then you start it all over again.
Too weird for words.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
6:00 pm
Gov’t Option
You betcha’ I was scratching my head, because you said 60% aren’t vaccinating their kids.
Now I see that it isn’t really “vaccinating” as in measles, mumps, rubella, polio and all those other vaccines. Just H1N1.
Not scratching as much….
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:01 pm
@@–
I’m not on this blog for long, and never in any significant way before late in the afternoon close to 5 but like every GOP bozohead you distort everything for your own self masturbation.
I have a detailed grasp of the health care bills that you can’t begin to match; healthcare, the law, and Congress.
That’d give you a lot of uphill battles teach.
I’m still looking for you to document that crap you pasted from Faux Noise on lol 111 new bureauracies that you casually tossed out in your usual MO without giving a damn whether you verified it.
The individual besides Andy who has been here all day in scrolling back is @@ .
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:02 pm
And as usual @@ rather than focus on getting your facts straight, you want to reach into the ole orrifice and pull out some fecal material to sling like your kids.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
6:03 pm
So I guess people don’t want to discuss Jay’s main point? (Hint: it wasn’t that Republicans who opposed Democratic health care reform somehow managed to slip this in so it’s all their fault!!!)
“But it has nevertheless stirred an intense controversy over the constitutional separation of church and state, and the possibility that other churches might seek reimbursements for so-called spiritual healing.”
AmVet
November 3rd, 2009
6:04 pm
While at Bob Jones snf Liberty U. they are preaching “Drill, baby drill” and Adam & Eve:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Harvard University has entered into a 15-year agreement to buy power and renewable energy certificates from a wind energy farm to be built in Maine.
Harvard officials announced Monday that Stetson Wind II facility near Danforth, Maine, expected to go online in the middle of next year, will eventually provide more than 10 percent of the university’s electricity needs. Federal environmental regulators say that will make Harvard the largest purchaser of wind power by a university or college in New England.
Harvard used more than 247 million kilowatt hours of electricity last year.
Harvard President Drew Faust said in a statement the agreement is part of the university’s pledge to expand use of green power and reduce waste.
Nothing Is Free
November 3rd, 2009
6:06 pm
@@
**Too weird for words.**
Calling it weird is being very kind. For an MD (Mister Doctor), he sure does have a lot of time on his hands.
josef nix
November 3rd, 2009
6:10 pm
I’ll probably not be making any friends here tonight on this one. Of course it should be covered if that is the treatment chosen by the patient. I went first to the medicine man Unmentionable, didn’t tell him why I was asking, just wanting a knee jerk reaction from a man of science and of faith with, as he says, as much faith in science as in faith in a S*preme B*ing, science being H*s gift to help us help ourselves.
When I told him why I was asking, his first comment was, “and I’ll lay odds they’re jumping on the Christian Scientists, right?” Now, what would they say if I wanted to bring in the traditional shaman? More than likely that would be so okay from cultural reasons. Well, as much as I respect my culture, it would be the same quackery as the Christian Scientists, the Scientologists or the American Psychiatric Association. Face it, for all of our progress, we’re still only a few steps removed from leeching in the great scheme of things. If you believe a shrink will help you, who am I to say you’re wrong? The same for the voo-doo doctor. The same for the preacher. Personally, I’ll go for two aspirins and call me in the morning. But that’s my choice.”
I agree.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:11 pm
@@–
No one would expect you to waste any of your time trying to read through the actual bills which are written by woncs who do nothing but write bills on the Hill for years. A typical section of the bills (any of ‘em) is a chain of references to federal code sections and Public Laws without hyperlinking and they are 1500-2500 pages long. That’s a complete exercise in futility.
But you should be smart enough given you have a web connection, to find reliable sources (not Faux or Rush) that allow you to metabolize the major points of each bill and then decide how you want to comment on them.
That would make sense. And as I pointed out Waxman’s Medicare Part D provision in the House bill is huge. We see elderly people every day who can’t begin to afford their meds.
Paul
November 3rd, 2009
6:11 pm
Gov’t Option 6:02
[[Like every GOP bozohead you distort everything for your own self masturbation.... And as usual @@ rather than focus on getting your facts straight, you want to reach into the ole orrifice and pull out some fecal material to sling like your kids.]]
I’m still scratchin’ my head. You sure you’re a liberal? Maybe even a Democrat? Is there some clue, some hint in your posts that could help us figure it out?
out for a bit -
AmVet
November 3rd, 2009
6:12 pm
Uh oh. You armchair millionaires had better start selling…
The funny part is at the end though. I wouldn’t’ trust that CNBC buffoon with a child’s piggy bank…
David Tice, the famous stock bear at Federated Investors, predicts that the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will drop more than 60 percent — to 400.
He told Bloomberg that the recent 60 percent rally has gone too far.
“It’s gotten very overbought,” Tice said. “There’s been a huge shift from negative to positive sentiment. We think a lot of the positive numbers coming out are really not very good underneath.”
As for the S&P 500, “We believe the market won’t bottom until it gets to a 400 level. Will it take three, six, nine months to get there? Probably. The market will generally overshoot fair value.”
Tice notes there is wide disagreement as to the economy’s strength. “We don’t think it’s that much better,” he said.
“When the economy has improved it’s been due to trillions of dollars of government spending,” such as Cash for Clunkers.
“It’s costing us so much money to generate this economic growth.”
Tice says investors should study the bear case.
“Recognize that the last 20 years might not be the same as the next 20 years. Be defensive and hold some gold.”
Very few experts are as bearish as Tice. CNBC’s Jim Cramer says the market is undergoing a mild correction.
“We’ve told you that a 5 percent to 7 percent decline could always be in the cards,” Cramer said on the air.
“The 7 percent solution at last is upon us.”
Nothing Is Free
November 3rd, 2009
6:12 pm
**Harvard University has entered into a 15-year agreement to buy power and renewable energy certificates from a wind energy farm to be built in Maine.**
Bwa-ha-ha-ha!!! Now that is funny. I guess the writer of that article hasn’t had a lot of electrical engineering training. Now how would you get an isolated power line between Maine and Cambridge? And how many power stations would that line go through?
Sounds like another bunch of PR crap to me. That’s no surprise. The surprise is that someone would actually believe it.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
November 3rd, 2009
6:12 pm
Well, they can keep that part of this Obamacare and get rid of the rest. But you can tell we got a whole bunch of Atheists on this blog. Instead of making fun of praying to heal things they need to get to a good Baptist church and hit their knees.
Just look at how much healing the Rev. Oral Roberts done and it never cost a penny except a donation or two. I reckon he’d still be alive today if the Good Lord give him time to heal hisself before that heart attack hit him. Same thing with the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Anyhow, it’s worth 20 bucks to get a preacher to pray for you when you’re sick. A Dr. would charge $100 just for a visit to his office. And you can bet that preacher won’t be out playing golf on Wednesday, like that Dr.
That’s my opinion and it’s very true. And just remember, Atheists, God Is Not Mocked!
DoggoneGA
November 3rd, 2009
6:14 pm
Paul – “Is a treatment methodology that seeks to improve a medical condition eligible for taxpayer support, even though its primary (not sole) advocates are members of a religious organization?”
This sounds too much like asking the same question about an untested, undeveloped treatment. Should experimental treatments be eligible for taxpayer support, even though they have not been proven to be effective.
Personally, I say let prayer based treatements be subject to the same scientific studies and tests as an other experimental treatement…and if it proves safe and effective, then yes it deserves taxpayer support, subject to the same licensing and prescription requirements as for any other treatment.
Jim
November 3rd, 2009
6:14 pm
Well, I’ve got some grape FlavorAid medicine that really cures what ails ya. And, the insurance companies just love it because it only takes a single low-cost dose to do the trick — permanently.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:17 pm
We aren’t a few steps from leaches which by the way are state of the art in surgery for transplanting arms and hands to establish quick collateral circulation. That’s pure poetic license and crap Josef.
Try treating a cohort of patients with unstable angina with Christian Science or some shaman or whatever.
And as for psychiatric drugs, we have a ways to go with antispychotic and other mood disorder meds to be sure since Solomon Snyder first discovered the dopamine axis for neurileptics at Hopkins and first discovered opiate receptiors in 1973.
I know you like to play the rebel Josef, but it’s plain wrong to equate Christian Science with current clinical medicine and then use the excuse that medicine doesn’t have cures for every disease.
@@
November 3rd, 2009
6:17 pm
you want to reach into the ole orrifice and pull out some fecal material to sling like your kids.
Hear this, and hear it well Chad.
You are a first-rate A$$HOLE. No doctor I know would say such a thing about children with disabilities. You are a fraud!
GFY!!!!!!!!!!
@@
November 3rd, 2009
6:20 pm
I would guesstimate that 50 to 70 children have sat at my table over the years. Not one of them
NARY A ONE has ever done what you claim, CHAD!!!!!!
JERK!
Nothing Is Free
November 3rd, 2009
6:21 pm
josef
**Now, what would they say if I wanted to bring in the traditional shaman? **
Man. That hits the nail on the head. A Woman’s Circle, a Wicca ceremony, walking a labyrinth, maybe a little astrology. Now THAT’s science. LOL!!!
If you want to really pi$$ off a liberal, question astrology. They are dead set that the positions of the planets in galaxies millions of Lightyears away, has a direct effect on people being born on this planet which will steer their lives. But ask them to believe in the power of positive thinking or even lots of people praying for the same thing and they will call you a Tali-Baptist.
It’s a very weird word, josef.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:21 pm
@@
I didn’t say it about “children with disabilities” babe–I said it about YOU. You act like a child instead of discussing an issue and actually rading about it at some quality place like an adult.
You act like a generic group of children and “handicapped” had ZERO to do with my statement. I have no idea what type kids you teach, and really don’t care.
However, given your research on 111 new agencies and your understanding of the health care bills to date, I imagine it would not be difficult to pick out an average ninth grader and get them way ahead of your curve quickly.
You choose to fling insults rather than spend your time reading in places that would eduate you as to what is in the bills.
Certainly you have the right to make up your mind on any issue and you will. But you owe it to yourself to get educated at the best sources.
You have an internet connection. So you really have no excuse.
jt
November 3rd, 2009
6:22 pm
Jay Bookman believes that paying for prayer is a bad idea but has absolutely no problem with the impending IRS involvement with our health insurance.
Statism is a weird religion.
Pogo
November 3rd, 2009
6:24 pm
Strange thing happened the other day. My company offered free flu shots for its employees (all 1000 of them at that particular location). On the day the vaccine was to be administered, the lines were very long but 95% of the participants were white. I asked a black person who is a friend of mine and who like myself is in supervision why he didn’t get the vaccine and he responded that he didn’t didn’t trust the government provided vaccine. Now this same supervisor supports Obama and is a big supporter of government ran healthcare yet, he doesn’t support the Obama government’s effort to vaccinate people for a killer virus. This told me a lot. Certain people support the idea of government control of healthcare because this enforces their liberal political idealogy (and supporting it supports Obama) but they don’t support it when it means that it may really impact their own health. This being said, it proves that Public Option’s theory about the un-educated and the religious conservatives not wanting the vaccine is crap. Maybe he should start attacking the African Americans about their unwillingness to receive the vaccine. Are they un-educated and are they religious zealots PO?
Dusty
November 3rd, 2009
6:24 pm
Folks, could we stop a minute and give the government a little credit this time?
Paul has come close. The guidelines for what is considered medical treatment per se need to be set if the government is going to dabble in medical care.
First, mainline churches pray for people including the sick. They pray FOR people but they give no treatments. There is no charge. Quite often, church members pray for those who are sick and have ASKED for prayers. There is much documented material on the fact that religious faith advances recovery. The price for Christian faith has already been paid.
Things that must be considered are varied: Christian Science has been discussed. I am not familiar with this faith or with Scientology. I doubt that Christian Scientists would charge for anything . I believe the choice is usually made by the individual as how far they will take their guidelines.
Then there is acupuncture. . Yes or no?? Message I believe is considered rehab.
Then there are medicine men. When I worked in Indian hospitals the doctors would work with medicine men when requested. The doctors saw that if a patient had faith in the medicine men they knew, it sometimes brought improvement. Payments? I don’t know. I only know that doctors could see the value of the services of those tribal leaders..
I am sure there are other situations about alternative medicine. These are the ones that come to mind.for me.
AmVet
November 3rd, 2009
6:25 pm
josef, as Mrs. Slocumb would say:
And I am unanimous in that.
Jeezus Henry Keerist, isolated power lines?
Just when you think you’ve read the most stupid thing ever written, along comes something to top it.
For you leech lovers in the Christian Science cult…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xKeHwXFa88&feature=PlayList&p=EEFE472C5F008518&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=42
@@
November 3rd, 2009
6:25 pm
SHUT IT DOWN, CHAD!!!!!!!
YOU ARE A SORRY EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING!!!!!!
I’ll catch you another day. I’ve had about all I can stomach for tonight.
Nothing Is Free
November 3rd, 2009
6:26 pm
@@
How many doctors do you know that live on a political blog? Right now, my company is working a lot with doctors. I don’t know of any of them that would have 10 minutes to spend here, and I could not imagine that any of them would even consider arguing with non-doctors about medical issues.
josef nix
November 3rd, 2009
6:29 pm
G-DD–
I know you, like Unmentionable, are a man of medical science and, believe me, I’ll certainly take y’all’s word for it. But I postulate that we are only a few steps from leeching not for poetic reasons. Look at your own dates cited. And, seriously, I certainly hope we see ourselves as such, it is what pushes us forward in medicine. I hope, trust and, yes, pray, that while taking our justifiable pride in how far we have come, we don’t become complacent. It’s why I’ve jumped on your bandwagon in relation to the vaccinations for the flu.
I don’t personally equate current clinical medicine with shamanism, whatever the cultural origin. But that’s my choice. As for your defense of the shrink quacks, they still considered homosexuality a mental illness until, how recently? Of course we recognize that as quackery now, but how far removed from leeches is that?
Secondly, as a physician, you must be familiar with the studies that have been done on the matter of faith IN treatment where, as you know, attitude plays a significant and not well understood part in recovery and, most especially, in quality of life for the believers.
Now, I keep my nitro on me at all times and while I’ve not had to use it yet, believe me, the few times I’ve thought I might need it, the reaction was, “Oh! Dear L-rd…”
josef nix
November 3rd, 2009
6:34 pm
DUSTY–
Thanks for chiming in here. In Congo the traditional shaman is an employee of the state medical program and is attached to the psychiatric wards in the state hospitals…
Nothing Is Free
November 3rd, 2009
6:35 pm
AmVet
Yes, Einstein. Isolated power lines. Please explain to me how that particular power will be transferred from Maine to Cambridge.
Now what I am expecting is another stream of insults, so you can save the keystrokes. But please. Give it a shot. Put your big mouth where your money is, for once. Yes that’s right. Be strong. Muster the courage. Grow a set of ba11s and give it a shot.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:36 pm
I am not here before close to 5Pm except for a few seconds and I know exponentially more doctors than you do, and have for many years. They do all kinds of things with their time, and they hang on blogs but not this one. Everyone that’s concerned with my being here doesn’t like it because I’m knowledgable on health care and I can back up what I say in seconds.
The GOP whackjobs resort to focusing on the COMMENTER instead of the issue. It’s a sign of real ignorance and weakness, and a consistent one.
\
We talk about non-physicians all the time about medical issues day in and day out–they’re called patients.
You ought to be thankful you have a good source for educating you.
And I can do Congress a lot better than you can NIF or for that matter anything that’s a current event.
That’s because I don’t waste time reading crap like Faux, Rush, Hannity and the extremist teabag fiction.
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:38 pm
NIF–
You’re mud wrestling with a lot of people who take time to get educated. You ought to follow their example. You have a steep learning curve.
And goody for you that your company interfaces with MDs–WOW! What kind of company is it pray tell?
josef nix
November 3rd, 2009
6:39 pm
NIF–
Now, I’m not sure how familiar you are with AA and the 12 step program, one of the most successful for the treatment of alcoholism, now finally recognized as a disease/disorder. One of the steps is the recognition of a higher power, be that the doorknob or the G-d of Abraham Moses Jesus and Mohammad…would the bashers here deny their success rate?
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:39 pm
AmVet consistently has some of the best documented and best expressed posts on any of these blogs NIF.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: Ate Up With Envy mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
November 3rd, 2009
6:41 pm
It’s amazing how the off year elections don’t “mean anything,” especially considering how many libs are incessantly babbling about them and they are where Obozo, mmm, mmmm, mmmmm, has spent all of his non party animal time the last month.
TGT
November 3rd, 2009
6:41 pm
While the “flat earth foot dragging ostriches” are denying anthropogenic global warming and preaching Adam and Eve, the Harvard “geniuses” are building windmills (yawn). (I’ll bet it’s not anywhere near Kennedy property, but probably is resulting in “windfall” profits for the snake-oil salesman Al Gore.)
Meanwhile at neighboring MIT Prof Richard Lindzen, one of the most distinguished climatologists in the world, states that “Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly exaggerated computer predictions combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a rollback of the industrial age.” (Like building windmills!!! ROTFLMAO!)
Nothing Is Free
November 3rd, 2009
6:46 pm
Gov Option Done
**I am not here before close to 5Pm except for a few seconds and I know exponentially more doctors than you do**
Really? So how do you know that? How do you know so much about anyone else that posts here?
You are an imbecile. I have caught you in so many lies that it has ceased to be funny. “I used to be a surgeon but now you are a GP.” I’ve mentioned that to some of my friends that are real doctors. When they stop laughing, they usually just shake their heads.
The really pathetic thing is that with what you do know about medicine, that you think that you need to claim to be a physician to have any credibility here.
You know a lot of facts and figures, but so does any RN, LPN or for that matter, any of the insularly positions in a hospital. No one believes you. Make your point and let it speak for itself. Once you start lying about what you really do, your credibility goes out the window.
Common Sense
November 3rd, 2009
6:47 pm
How dare taxpayer money go for military chaplains ! Oh, the horror of it all. !!
Nothing Is Free
November 3rd, 2009
6:48 pm
Gov, Option Done
**And goody for you that your company interfaces with MDs–WOW! What kind of company is it pray tell?**
Sorry. It’s people like you that are the reason that most people put a solid limit on the amount of personal information that is revealed on a public forum.
josef nix
November 3rd, 2009
6:49 pm
NIF
I’m gemini, saggitarius rising, moon in cancer and a stellum of five planets in cancer…oh, the reception that “knowledge” receives in certain circles!
Nothing Is Free
November 3rd, 2009
6:50 pm
TGT
Well you obviously aren’t living in Miami where the ocean has taken the city back. Just ask Al Gore. Most of Florida is underwater. LOL!!
josef nix
November 3rd, 2009
6:51 pm
Common Sense
“How dare taxpayer money go for military chaplains ! Oh, the horror of it all. !!”
There are no atheists in foxholes and very few in the ER!
Gov Option Done Deal!
November 3rd, 2009
6:51 pm
Josef–
I’m not discouraging praying for anyone in any circumstance. I understand freedom of religion and the intense and powerful part of peoples’ life religion occupies. But I don’t like to see Christian Science elevated as health care in a bill proposed to become law, and I thought that was Jay Bookman’s clear point.
I worry large parts of everyday about things we can’t get done in medicine yet or what if we had so and so that would do such and such. I worry about things we have but can’t get to people–the biologicals that are so expensive that are part of a breast cancer treatment regimen like Herceptin and its progeny, and Enbrel are examples.
I’ve followed the DSMIV nomenclature controversies a bit, although I don’t spend much of my time reading the psych lit, there is one going on with respect to Autism and the permutations and combinations of the ways Asperger’s Syndrome is used in different contexts now to make it not very meaningful to quote one of the panilists in the NYT yesterday.
I never for a moment thought that homosexuality should have been classified anywhere near a DSM and it’s FAR from perfect with a lot of mistakes, gaps, gaffs. At the end of the day, every DSM classification is done by a committee subjectively.
josef nix
November 3rd, 2009
6:52 pm
BTW–
If Orrin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy can see common cause here, doesn’t that mean something?