Surprise: Democrat Health Care Bill Will Cover “Prayer Treatment”

I’m an atheist, so I don’t really have a dog in this hunt, but this seems like a pretty ridiculous thing to ask the taxpayers to pay for:

What do Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have in common? A soft spot for Christian Scientists.
The three senators have quietly inserted a provision into the Democrats’ healthcare overhaul that would allow the Christian Science church to receive remuneration from the federal government for prayer treatments as medical expenses.
Why are liberal Democrats teaming up with a conservative senator for a provision that would normally be the bane of the Senate’s liberal elite? Because the headquarters of the Christian Science church is in Boston.
“The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine,” the Los Angeles Times’ Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger, who found the measure, write. “While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against ‘religious and spiritual healthcare.’”

This is the problem with government getting into health care.
In a truly free market health care system Americans can buy the sort of coverage they want. If someone wants coverage for abortion or tobacco cessation counseling or even prayer treatments they can pay for it themselves without asking their neighbors to pay for it for them.
But in a government health care system we’re all responsible for paying for one another. And so we either force them to pay for coverage for things they might not need or want or might find morally objectionable, or on the other hand we may deny them access to coverage they do want.
Independence solves these problems. Sadly, far too many people prefer government dependence.