A misguided law on faith healing and its legacy survive

Federal spending to support faith healing will continue, and with it, a government endorsement of a practice that puts children at risk.

Editorial. May 7, 2001.

It was up to the U.S. Supreme Court to give the final word on federal funding to support faith healing, and it did so without saying a thing.

The high court, without comment, simply let a lower appeals panel ruling stand. It allows Medicare and Medicaid money to be paid to "religious nonmedical health care institutions" -- RNHCIs -- which, in practice, is another way of saying Christian Science sanatoriums.

Both the effect of the Supreme Court's order and its silence are the latest -- and likely the last -- in a string of disappointing decisions by Congress and the courts about this law. This situation was also a timely opportunity lost for the highest court in the land to give fresh guidance on when church, state and medicine intersect, especially so given the recent creation of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

The lawsuit and appeal that put this case on the Supreme Court's doorstep was brought by Children's Healthcare Is A Legal Duty Inc., a group critical of faith healing. The AMA and other medical and nursing organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support.

Federal payments to Christian Science healing centers were part of Medicare and Medicaid legislation in 1965. A challenge by CHILD brought a court ruling against this blatantly preferential status in 1996.

Congress responded by replacing references to Christian Science with the new RNHCI designation. It fits the roughly 20 Christian Science centers like a glove, although apparently no similar facilities have been established by other religious groups. While the dollar amount is the smaller part of the price to be paid for the lawmakers' generosity, an estimated $8 million a year in Medicare money meant for medical care goes to these facilities that are explicitly "nonmedical." [...]