Gov't Health Care and Separation of Church & State

If you read any news source in the last several months you know that there is a strong chance our country's health care system may someday have few options other than those administered by the government. And if you read this blog for even a few posts you have seen examples of how much limitation of religious expression there can be in the public sphere. Suppose we put those two thoughts together for a minute.

If we do end up with health care courtesy of the Federal Government, how long will it be before we have lawsuits about praying in hospital rooms? Or having a chapel in a hospital?

As public resistance become stronger to the health care idea, the language of the politicians has change from "health care reform" to "health insurance reform." We'll see where that goes. Either way it could mean substantially more government involvement in our health care system, probably at all levels.

Before I started studying the First Amendment and some of the actions reported here (see the tag Discrimination Examples for starters), I would have thought it a severe over-reaction to worry about praying in a hospital room. But just consider how much more meaning the courts have found in the First Amendment than our Founders said it contained. For example:

Who Understood the 1st Amendment Better: James Madison or Justice Black?

First Amendment - Founders vs. 20th-Century Court

Do I worry too much? I hope that's all it is.