Seeking Divine Protection--WaPo [View All]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/22/AR2005102200046.html?referrer=email

"Seeking Divine Protection
Some Believers Put Faith in Church Plans Instead of Standard Health Insurance

By Sandra G. Boodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; Page HE01

When his wife spent a week in Georgetown University Hospital's intensive care unit last year recovering from life-saving brain surgery, Joe Huff never worried about who would pay her $120,000 hospital bill, even though his family has no health insurance. Huff, a 52-year-old Laytonsville real estate agent, said he trusted that a bill-sharing cooperative of evangelical Christians he joined 10 years ago -- and to which he faithfully mailed a $346 monthly check -- would come through, just as it had when the youngest of the couple's seven children was hospitalized with spinal meningitis two years ago...

Huff and his family are among the 60,000 members of Medi-Share, the largest of a little-known group of nonprofit organizations that market themselves as faith-based alternatives to health insurance. The half-dozen plans, which claim a total membership of more than 120,000 Americans, are especially popular in the South. The appeal of these "church plans," as they are known in the insurance industry, is both economic and religious. Because their monthly cost is roughly half that of conventional health insurance premiums, they appeal to those who find medical insurance difficult or impossible to afford. And because their membership is strictly limited to evangelical Christians certified as regular churchgoers by their pastors, they cater to people opposed to "subsidizing high-risk, sinful lifestyles," in the words of Medi-Share's Web site....

Tobacco use, immoderate drinking, homosexuality and extramarital sex are strictly forbidden, and anyone caught violating these proscriptions can be expelled. The plans don't pay for abortion,or treatment of sexually transmitted diseases or HIV that was not, as Samaritan puts it, "contracted innocently." While each plan's rules differ, most exclude coverage of preexisting conditions, as well as treatment related to cancer recurrence, serious heart disease, obesity, psychiatric disorders or vision problems.

"Our greatest sin is racing down to the buffet after the sermon," quipped E. John Reinhold, a former insurance executive who is the founding chairman of Medi-Share, a subsidiary of the American Evangelistic Association, based in Melbourne, Fla...."



A very interesting peek into the underbelly of America. Of course, it doesn't matter that obesity-related illness is the #1 killer to these people "racing down to the buffet after the sermon." No, homosexuality and STDs are so much worse! I hate to think that this is why we can't get single payer universal coverage.