(Editor’s Note: This article comes from small-town Indiana and provides an excellent summary of arguments on this issue)

Religious groups are voicing concerns about health care reform, causing U.S. legislators to balance faith-based views with public policy.

The night before the November health care vote, Catholic bishops were in the Capitol suite of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., negotiating for hours with top officials about abortion, according to The Associated Press.

“This tends to be policy, this tends to be an exercise in compromise,” said U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., on the process of listening to all opinions, regardless of religion, when forming legislation.

Visclosky said he had not been directly contacted by any organized religious group but had been contacted by individuals leading up to the House of Representatives’ vote on health care reform.

Meanwhile, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., has been receiving calls, letters and attending meetings with religious groups regarding health care reform, said Brian Weiss, Bayh’s spokesman.

With the Catholic Church getting political recognition, other religions with fewer members, like The Church of Christ, Scientist, would like to get the same attention as legislators face an end-of-the-year deadline on health care reform.

“The concern I have is that the noise level is so high right now in Washington, D.C., it’s very hard to sit down and calmly explain what is going on,” said Phil Davis, The Church of Christ, Scientist’s manager of media and legislative affairs.

The Church of Christ, Scientist has about 1,150 small churches in the United States. Christian Scientists have met in person with legislators to try and ensure private insurance coverage of spiritual care. The church is based on the belief that God is all-encompassing, and members often seek medical care through prayer instead of doctors.

“This is not an advancement or an establishment of religion, it is an accommodation of a secular purpose, which is effective health care,” said Davis, citing about 30 percent of spiritual healing requests do not come from Christian Scientists. “This country has a long tradition of accommodating religious practices and especially religious practices for secular purposes.”

The church’s amendment was originally included in the House’s committees on Education and Labor as well as Energy and Commerce, he said. “Early on we made very good progress,” Davis said. “What we discovered the last few hours before the vote on the House, was our amendment was taken out.”

Meanwhile, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to Congress in July stating, health care reform should not force anyone to directly or indirectly fund abortions through the government’s health care plan.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]