Christian Science Medicare Pay Illegal

For the first time, a federal judge has struck down Medicare and Medicaid payments to Christian Science healers as a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state. Although Christian Science practitioners use no drugs or conventional medical treatments, they have received millions of dollars in federal reimbursements because the law explicitly applies to the Christian Science church. “Legislative accommodation of religious beliefs is a valuable and worthy enterprise, but here . . . the accommodation . . . too strongly favors one particular sect,” U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle ruled in St. Paul, Minn.