{"id":7246,"date":"2012-04-22T18:13:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T18:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7246"},"modified":"2012-04-22T18:13:13","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T18:13:13","slug":"hatch-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/hatch-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Hatch, Back?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Orrin Hatch is forced to face a primary challenge<\/a>, here\u2019s a little reminder from 2009<\/a> about the (very) long-serving senator\u2019s attitude towards taxpayers\u2019 money:<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.<\/p>\n

The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.<\/p>\n

The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual healthcare.”<\/p>\n

It would have a minor effect on the overall cost of the bill — Christian Science is a small church, and the prayer treatments can cost as little as $20 a day. But it has nevertheless stirred an intense controversy over the constitutional separation of church and state, and the possibility that other churches might seek reimbursements for so-called spiritual healing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I wrote back at the time<\/a>, in this context I could not care less about the separation of church and state, but I do care a great deal about the separation of the taxpayer from his money. Senator Hatch clearly did not. <\/p>\n

In the event, the proposed change did not get through, but that Hatch even tried this stunt is a reminder that, when it comes to protecting the taxpayer, Hatch is not a man who can be trusted. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Orrin Hatch is forced to face a primary challenge, here\u2019s a little reminder from 2009 about the (very) long-serving senator\u2019s attitude towards taxpayers\u2019 money: WASHINGTON \u2014 Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[746],"tags":[503,29,909,504,82],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7246"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7263,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7246\/revisions\/7263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}