How on earth can you reimburse for spiritual care, it’s just one of the silliest things I ever heard.

Am so glad that that part of the health care bill didn’t make it! I agree, cknuck, it was a silly idea to begin with. Guess the CS will just have to deal.

I didn’t know that Medicare would cover Christian Science Nurses care. That a few insurers,also, are covering what they term spiritual care is up to the person buying the insurance, and paying the asking price. It would be interesting to know if the Christian Science people have to receive Medical Doctors treatment included with a nurse practishion to be paid by Medicare. The people who want this covered by a government covered health plan should not call their spiritual freedom abused, because it is a health plan period. If they need spiritul help as in the Christian Scientists and that’s all they are using, it is of faith, and does not enter into scientific medicine. If you start calling it spiritual medical care than every minister that visits you and helps you with your faith in getting well would have to be reimbursed. Better to keep matters of faith, health,r and govenment apart.

Have a new keyboard that’s driving me up the wall. Practitioners, and the r just appeared!

What do they pay a Christian Science nurse for? Emptying your bedpans with prayer?

How much can it cost to pray? Or do they carefully design the prayers based on the patient’s symptoms? I doubt it, but I don’t know. Anyone here know?
Anyway I also am glad it’s not in the Senate version.

I spent my life as an electronic designer and microcomputer programmer, a very hard science type. In 1995 I was healed of a serious and likely fatal medical condition through the silent prayer of an employee, who was a lifelong Christian Scientist. The healing involved total removal of all symptoms in less than 24 hours, they just were not there anymore, as well as a sense of peace and elevated thought that I would never have believed possible. I have heard descriptions of near death experiences that sound similar to what I experienced, a sense of total good and that there is nothing to fear.
I began studying Christian Science as a result of that experience, and have since used it to heal a broken foot with no medical involvement of any kind, allergies, work injuries, and many other conditions. My retirement project is a shrub and tree nursery, and I do hard physical work every day. At age 69 I am in perfect health and doing things easily that I could not have done at all at age 55.
Christian Science Prayer is different in several subtle ways from what most people think of as prayer. Christian Science Practitioners are actually being paid for teaching and demonstrating the knowledge that makes up Christian Science. It is available to any human being, and brings healing.
Christian Science Prayer taps natural laws that are as real as Ohm’s law. Just because most people are not aware of them doesn’t mean they are not present and active.
Christian Science is the best kept secret of the age. It really works. Why should I be forced to pay taxes for other types of medical assistance that I will never use?

Why don’t y’all donate prayers and whatever goes with them to terminally ill people here and there. Get several of those miraculous recoveries you describe and it will no longer be so secret.
In the meantime excuse me if I doubt it was the prayers; seems to me if it did work a lot more people would use it. And what about those children who die because their parents insist on praying them well instead of taking them to a doctor? Perhaps they weren’t Christian Scientists, but whoever they were I damn well don’t want my tax money used to pay them to abuse their children!
My tax money is already used for things I don’t approve of, such as the terminally stupid and incredibly expensive Republican-engineered invasion of Iraq. Join the club of people who get no benefit from some of the ways their tax money is used..

nnmns that is totally unfair to speak to this person’s experience like that you have no prior knowledge to back up your mean assertions . I also have experienced healing prayer on many occasions, it is real. But it is not a thing that should be monetarily compensated, mostly because I think God would not be pleased and it’s not a commodity.

REI, I believe your story. Gifts of the spirit include healing. Some people appear here and there in our lives here and elsewhere in the world with this gift. Ambrose and Olga Worrell were a couple who lived on the east coast, belonged to a Methodist Church and were recognized as proven healers. Another healer was mentioned in the book I bought called, The Miracle Workers. Our daughter had just been diagnosed with Leukemia and the prognosis wasn’t good. I reached both of these people and they were comforting and helpful, but it didn’t heal our daughter, whatever they prayed. One was in CA so she had person to person contact. Miracles aren’t for everyone it seems. With her treatment she had two long remmissions and lived her life normally until the last month, so who is to say that wasn’t a miracle of sorts? Nobody else was that fortunate in the early seventies on her Cancer Wing.

No monies were ever exchanged by either Healer for our daughter.

cknuck: “nnmns that is totally unfair to speak to this person’s experience like that you have no prior knowledge to back up your mean assertions.”
I have logic. REI asserts two miracles occurred without detailing just what the first one was or supplying any documentation. Claims of miracles demand documentation – the bigger the miracle the more and stronger documentation is needed. That’s why I can point out there’s no validation for the claimed miracles at the foundation of Christianity.
Anyway, I said “In the meantime excuse me if I doubt it was the prayers; seems to me if it did work a lot more people would use it.”
That was polite and logical. You should try more of both of those, cknuck.

nnmns quote, “Claims of miracles demand documentation”
Says who? God does not answer to you nor is any miracles any less valid because they were not proven to you.
If I choose to be polite to my enemies I do but if not I don’t, they are my enemies.

It must be frustrating to lose so many arguments to your enemies.

AND ON THOSE HAPPY NOTES:
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Hope everyone’s day is full of love, and family and of course, good food. I know I have more blessings than a lot of folks, and 1 of those blessings is you posters here…even when we disagree on things!

Some things that occur in medicine and “cures” are totally unexplainable. REI is convinced that CS prayers helped him over many hurtles. Who knows?
Henrietta, when my husband had his stroke, there were many prayers offered for him. Even this Pagan is willing to accept help from sources that I am not sure exist. Help is help….Oh, and he has little damage and was able to return to work….until we retired 5 years ago. In your daughter’s situation one can’t say that the prayers didn’t help her live as long as she did. There is power in positive thoughts….IMO that is what a lot of prayer is.
Having said that, I will not give up medicial help when I need it.

It would be nnmns if that was to happen but I haven’t lost anything to you and never will.

It’s not just logic but evidence that shows that Christian Science prayers don’t work. JAMA has published a peer-reviewed study that shows Christian Scientists lead shorter lives than everyone else, even though they don’t drink alcohol or smoke. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/262/12/1657 And http://www.childrenshealthcare.org lists tragic cases of children who died of treatable illnesses because their parents denied them medical care.
If you go to the CS church website, you see that testimonies are “verified” by getting someone to attest to your good character–no one checks whether facts are reported correctly. And many of the “healings” were never diagnosed in the first place. The Washington Post recently quoted CS practitioner, Prue Lewis, who assumes she was healed of breast cancer because a painful lump went away after a few weeks of prayer. However, painful lumps are generally cysts that vanish by themselves in the same amount of time.
I have no way of knowing what cknuck experienced, but odds are, it was no more miraculous than Lewis’ “cancer” healing. Still, I completely support the right of any adult to choose CS treatment.
I just don’t think taxpayers should reimburse for prayer treatments of undiagnosed ailments. Next thing you know, we’ll be paying for voodoo and scientology audits and who knows what else. And Christian Scientists will have that much more incentive to deny medical care to their kids.
(btw, nnms, Medicare does not require a doctor’s care for CS nursing treatment. No one else qualifies for Medicare unless they are getting actual medical treatment, but Christian Scientists alone can be reimbursed for nonmedical custodial care. It’s shocking to see what pandering politicians will allow, isn’t it?)

Cassie you are right you don’t know what I experience, usually one would leave it at that. I am not a Chrisian Science member by belief, but I do believe in prayer.

cknuck, I apologize. I didn’t read carefully enough and lumped you in with the Christian Scientists. I believe in prayer too, and I believe God expects us to use all the resources He gave us (including medicine) so this CS proposal gets me going. That’s no excuse for mischaracterizing what you said, though. I’m sorry.

Cassie I am humbled by your post, you are one in a million thanks. My grammar is not the best I was endorsing prayer but I understand how I could have confused you.

A previous writer has referred to the JAMA study about Christian Scientists. That study would be considered extremely flawed by any objective standard. It looked at alumni magazines of two colleges and then drew conclusions about the entire membership of the Christian Science Church. It first wrongly assumed that the alumni magazines are a viable source of mortality figures and then further erroneously assumed that the alumni of a certain college are all Christian Scientists.
As we move forward in this national endeavor to provide everyone with access to the systems of health care that meet the needs of our pluralistic society, it’s important that we don’t lean on hearsay, emotionalism, and misperceptions in making what are obviously important decisions about the well-being and health of our society.
Ken Girard
Christian Science Committee on Publication for Massachusetts

It’s nice to see Ken Girard over here, earning his paycheck. (I know I’m not making it easy on you, Ken. ) Ken says the peer-reviewed study I linked to is “flawed by any objective standard” . . . I guess people can judge for themselves who can more credibly evaluate scientific research–JAMA, or the official CS church spokesman.
Ken, if the CS church had evidence of its claims, it would qualify for medical treatment without needing a special boost from the government. And even if the CS church were unwilling to do provide evidence, for some reason, if it worked as well as you claim, people would be clamoring for CS treatment. It’s not like CS is new, and anyone can hire a practitioner without joining the church. Yet most people stay away.
I suppose that it’s possible that people who weren’t raised in CS avoid it simply out of prejudice or ignorance, but if there were enough “born to CS” Christian Scientists around, insurers would be clamoring to sell insurance to you. I’m positive such insurance was available a few decades ago because I saw it advertised and I know people who bought it. Unfortunately, CS membership has been dwindling noticeably, so the market for such insurance is shrinking. I assume that’s why you need the government to help you make it available.
Why should the government force insurers to offer coverage for which there is little or no market? Especially when offering that coverage gives a special privilege to one church: medical treatments wouldn’t be covered without evidence that they work, but CS would be covered WITHOUT evidence, even without a diagnosis.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me for the government to force insurers to reimburse unproven treatments of undiagnosed ailments.