Healthcare reform and prayer treatment

There was an interesting article printed in the Los Angeles Times today that highlights a wrestling in our society over the merits, value and legitimacy of treatment for health problems through prayer.

Three prominent senators inserted a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill that would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses. I'll let you read the article yourself about the debate surrounding this provision.

In my own prayers, I pray that our country more largely recognizes the benefit of prayer. The present healthcare crisis is not primarily a financial one, but a moral and spiritual one. Our present system is crying out for a moral and spiritual overhaul that elevates the kind of healthcare people receive. And spiritual treatment is a viable and proven form of care.

Health is more than a medically manicured body. It involves living a spiritually responsible life, which spiritual treatment can help people find.

Millions of prayer-motivated people have proven the benefit of prayer to meet health needs over the centuries. We may all have plenty to learn about how to meet all health needs consistently and constantly solely through prayer, but the success to date and the benefits already garnered merit continued support of prayer-based treatment.

It certainly is monumentally less expensive than conventional medical care.

If everyone sincerely turned to God first before racing to the doctor or to the emergency room when a trouble developed, there would be far less visits to medical facilities and far fewer burdensome medical bills.

Prayer works. It heals. It brings huge benefits to society.

The future of Christian Science treatment is in no way tied to the outcome of a healthcare bill in Congress, but it would benefit our population to recognize the benefits of prayer and use it more frequently for healthcare needs. A provision in the healthcare bill recognizing the value of spiritual treatment could be a step in that direction.

Click here for article:

"Healthcare provision seeks to embrace prayer treatments"