The Church of Christian Science, the Boston-based church, is taking up issue with the Commonwealth's new law on mandatory healthcare coverage. They fear that the way the law is currently written it does not allow for employers to provide an option of faith-based healing. Christian Scientists believe that the power of healing lies in the deity, and through prayer all illness and sickness can be healed. To that end they don't practice medicine or subscribe to the common treatments that common medical practice provides. In this recent push the effort is being made to make sure that the language provided in the new healthcare law will allow for them to provide a faith-based healing method (so you pay for someone to pray for you, not to give you penicillin). Semantics are always important when discussing law, even a comma can effect the legality of an action. The Church of Christian Science is treading lightly on this issue. While it's an important issue for the nature of their faith and they don't want to be subject to the fines the state may impose for every person in their employ who chooses their faith-based heathcare plan (because it's not medical care, it's "health care") they are making sure that it's understood they're only asking for the option to provide the service. They are not requiring that the option be provided by all, only that they're not penalized for providing it.
Flickr user wallyg provides us with a overhead view of the Christian Science Plaza
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I can see some tragically funny scenes rising out of this.
For example, a woman in an airport reads a sign detailing the early warnings signs of a stroke, and immediately notices a man displaying the symptoms. She immediately calls an ambulance and when it arrives, the medic congratulates the woman on her quick thinking that probably not only saved this stroke victims life, but probably spared him any serious physical impairment. Before they can load the patient into the ambulance however, they look in his wallet and find his Faith Based Health Care Plan card. They immediately put the man down and begin to pray. Meanwhile, another gentleman falls down the escalator. The ambulance team abandons the stroke victim and rushes the man who fell down the escalator to the hospital and save his life, per the instructions on his health insurance plan that the law requires him to be offered. The stroke victim dies, and the government is sued by his family for not following the directions on the back of his Faith Based Health Care Plan, that required them to pray for stroke relief.
It’s a Mad Mad Mad World.