Posted on 01/02/2020 5:01:46 AM PST by karpov
Eight-year-old Blake Collie was at the swimming pool when he got a frightening headache. His parents rushed him to the emergency room only to learn he had a brain aneurysm. Blake spent nearly two months in the hospital.
His family did not have traditional health insurance. “We could not afford it,” said his father, Mark Collie, a freelance photographer in Washington, N.C.
Instead, they pay about $530 a month through a Christian health care sharing organization to pay members’ medical bills. But the group capped payments for members at $250,000, almost certainly far less than the final tally of Blake’s mounting medical bills.
“Just trust God,” the nonprofit group, Samaritan Ministries, in Peoria, Ill., said in a statement about its coverage, and advises its members that “there is no coverage, no guarantee of payment.”
More than one million Americans, struggling to cope with the rising cost of health insurance, have joined such groups, attracted by prices that are far lower than the premiums for policies that must meet strict requirements, like guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions, established by the Affordable Care Act. The groups say they permit people of a common religious or ethical belief to share medical costs, and many were grandfathered in under the federal health care law mainly through a religious exemption.
These Christian nonprofit groups offer far lower rates because they are not classified as insurance and are under no legal obligation to pay medical claims. They generally decline to cover people with pre-existing illnesses. They can set limits on how much their members will pay, and they can legally refuse to cover treatments for specialties like mental health.
...
The main requirement for membership is adherence to a Christian lifestyle.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If it were not for the huge push for one-size-fits-all government-run socialized health care, groups like this would not be needed. So, of course, the New York Times wants them discredited and banned, like the ministries that try to deprogram homosexuals.
I have my misgivings about these groups and how their “sharing” economic model truly works. It’s okay to be somewhat skeptical. But don’t ever look for the NYT to give approval even if it worked flawlessly. Anyone allowed to escape the government trap, and make moral judgements about ungodly practices, is an enemy to collectivists like the Times.
I had a 2-year gap in Tricare between retiring from the reserves and turning 60 and we used Samaritan Ministries. It was 25% of what Tricare Retired Reserve would have been and covered everything, including a cardiac scare. I recommend them to everybody looking for coverage.
And it’s all stated in the terms of service or policy declarations. If the nyt hates it, it must be great! Must be the “Christian” part that makes the nyt go bonkers.
They almost bury the “it covered a quarter million” aspect.
We had Medishare for several months when my husband was between jobs, and I don’t have health insurance because I’m a freelancer. Private insurance is almost impossible to exist, and f-k Obamacare.
We paid a higher tier for the coverage because of some health issues but were accepted. When our firstborn child needed an MRI for an injury, we did pay 4K for the procedure out of pocket ... after the health sharing ministry negotiated things down for us. We saved as much on that one procedure as we paid in premiums.
Husband found a job and health insurance by the time we finally did the surgery for the joint issue our child apparently had. (Did rehab and every non-surgical option out of pocket first.) It was a hassle to get Medishare discounts at the doc-in-a-box / not quite an ER.
I would say Medishare is a good choice if you:
* don’t have major prexisting conditions
* have a beefed up health savings account and keep funding it
* invest in preventative care
They consider it evil for not paying for abortions, transgender care and artificial insemination for lesbians. You know, the modern civil rights.
And that’s why Medicare for all will fail.
I have Solidarity Health Share. Very happy so far. i couldn’t continue paying $750 to COBRA esp when I discovered the employer was adding on $125 as a “fee” for nothing.
Alberta’s Child, what the hell? “Jewish propagandists”? Really? You are part of the the problem. Antisemitism is proof of extreme stupidity.
Exactly.
You mean the NYT did not mention that? I am shocked.
I have no idea whether these programs are as good, better, or worse than traditional, employment based health insurance programs. I do know that I absolutely hate the Medi-Share commercials that run at least every hour on the Sirius-XM Patriot Station. I can’t stand the guy’s voice, inflections, diction, etc. He’s so annoying that I immediately change the station for 60 seconds.
Also, the quote that I got from the Medi-Share website is about the same that we currently pay for traditional health insurance, including the deductibles and co-pays.
Bingo.
Tough to do but I think you're being too hard on the NYT.
These health ministries are aggressively marketing themselves and some of the states, like Texas, have real concerns that buyers aren't understanding the limitations.
I think the ministries have their place and work well for most people, but in general they don't cover the most expensive cases and cap payments. As long as people know that going in, plus the fact that they don't really have legal recourse if things aren't covered, fine.
I will say that like most of these budget insurance/coverage schemes they push the cost of the most expensive cases onto the responsible people who buy insurance or the taxpayer, but that's another topic.
Overall I think the Times did a decent job on this one.
(yawn)….NY Slimes doing a hatchet job on Christians. Absolutely nothing new or unusual in that.
Please stop with the Jew hatred already.
Medicare pays for skilled nursing care for 90 days and then you’re on your own.
Only the rich and poor are covered. The middle class takes it up the chin.
That’s what the NYT won’t tell its readers.
They don’t purport to cover everything. You should have long term health care insurance or catastrophic health care insurance to cover unexpected expenses.
Health care sharing is OK for routine health care. Its not a magic bullet.
That's right. The problem is many subscribers think it's insurance, understandably given the way many of the plans market themselves.
That's why the state regulators are taking action.
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