A recent Los Angeles Times article by Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger detailed a provision to the healthcare Band-Aid, one introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch and supported by other congressional luminaries like Sen. John Kerry, which �requires insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.�

After reading this, I immediately began to excavate for information about the Church of Christ, Scientist, whose name seems more than a little oxymoronic. According to the site beliefnet.com, �suffering is a false belief� that originates in the mind. �Physicians are not viewed antagonistically; but their methods are seen as ineffective because they treat disease as originating in the body rather than mind.�

Hamburger and Geiger quoted Christian Science Church official Phil Davis who said that �prayer treatment was an effective alternative to conventional healthcare.�

Remember, now, that both Kerry and Hatch -- in fact, all members of Congress -- benefit from socialized medicine, the very best our tax dollars can purchase. Those we elect to represent our interests pay a very small amount for our largesse, a pittance compared to what we ordinaries are forced to spend on outrageous premiums and high co-pays. Family members of the power wielders are covered, too, and pre-existing conditions are not denied.

So, all of this leads to some conclusions/suggestions: if suffering is head-case stuff and can be prayed away, we don�t need medical therapies and, therefore, Big Insurance and Big Pharma are obsolete. Therefore, we citizens should demand the termination of this obsolescence -- health coverage for Congress. Let them eat prayers.

And we�ll tell Sen. Hatch that if he�s short of breath, feels a crushing pain in his chest, breaks out in a cold sweat, is nauseas, and has arm discomfort, he shouldn�t allow anyone to call 911. Instead, he must request a good Christian Scientist Dial-A-Prayer to drive the evil and massive coronary from his noggin. If he thinks for one second that he requires a pacemaker, he can pace the prayers. Because it�s his head. Nothing more.

And for Sen. Kerry, we�ll advise if his prostrate cancer recurs or metastasizes, he should hire the prayer providers to exorcise from his mind whatever�s the matter -- those figments of �false belief.� After all, who needs medical therapy when prayer therapy is so very state of the art?

Now, for the last: Congressmen and women who don�t run swiftly from a provision put forth by vomitous panderers, pouring church and state into a blender, should receive no access to physicians and medical procedures. Pray-away-the-demons will be their robust plan to wellness, without any other option.

Deliver us from quackery. Deliver us from hypocrisy.