It Looks Like Health Insurance, but It's Not. 'Just Trust God,' Buyers Are Told. [View all]
It Looks Like Health Insurance, but It’s Not. ‘Just Trust God,’ Buyers Are Told.
Some state regulators are scrutinizing nonprofit Christian cost-sharing ministries that enroll Americans struggling to pay for medical care, but aren’t legally bound to cover their members’ claims.
By Reed Abelson at the NYTimes
Jan. 2, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/health/christian-health-care-insurance.html
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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.”
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