You are correct that long-term trends are for an ever-expanding government, that results in an expanding impact from The First Amendment.

I think that you are incorrect in some of your specific worries though. For instance if there is an effective single-payer program in place, I suspect that it would provide more affordable and better care than a private religious equivalent.

I also disagree that the impact on religion is a particularly worrisome aspect of this trend. Far more worrying to me is that the long-term growth of government is signficantly faster than the growth of GNP. I'm aware of some of the reasons why this is so, and don't see how they can easily be reversed. (Certainly nobody has been successful in reversing them...)

What happens when those two curves intersect? Well somewhere before then, the trend has to break. And if there is no easy way to break the trend, then there has to be a painful break. I don't remember exactly when that projected intersection is, but I am pretty sure that it is in this centry, and suspect that it is in my lifetime.

Personally I am far more worried about what kind of pain will be involved in that change, and what will happen afterwards, than I am in secondary impacts from having that much government involvement.

Cheers,
Ben