Health Sharing
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
- Galatians 6:2 (ESV)
Healthcare has become a major expense for individuals, families, and businesses that provide health insurance benefits to employees. With the rising cost of healthcare premiums as well as deductibles, healthcare has become a large part of these budgets. In some ways, many individuals have coverage but don’t necessarily find themselves having care due to the astronomical costs reaching $20,000 to $30,000 per year.
This dilemma has prompted much discussion as to the reasons for escalating costs in healthcare, as well as methods of being able to better provide reimbursement for healthcare related expenses. Hospital administrators, insurance executives, and policymakers debate the merits of insurance-based versus public-based reimbursement of health expenses. But in the midst of this noise, there is an alternative method of financing healthcare expenses, and that is health sharing.
Health sharing has been around for decades. But in 2010, with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, health sharing rose in prominence. One of the key provisions of the legislation termed Obamacare was the individual mandate. In order to provide expanded coverage, subsidies for specific insurance plans, and to cover pre-existing health conditions, the Affordable Care Act needed to broaden the pool of premium-paying insurance customers. In essence, they needed young and healthy individuals who can pay premiums but are cheap to insure. Enter the individual mandate: either buy insurance or pay a tax. Either way, the insurance companies and the government get their money.
Unfortunately, this was no panacea as plan options were limited, plan availability was also limited, and the cost for those plans that remained increased substantially. And many people chafed at the idea of being required to buy a product that they either didn’t want, cost them too much, or didn’t fit their needs. But the Affordable Care Act had one unique provision. It exempted members of health sharing organizations from the individual mandate. Though not insurance, in the eyes of the government, it was viewed as the equivalent of having health insurance.
For me personally, I ran across the concept of health sharing many years ago. At the time, it was nothing more than a curiosity. And as I went through my medical training, it was not taught as one of the solutions for reimbursing healthcare expenses. The assumed model for the majority of healthcare providers, healthcare organizations, and medical education is the idea of insurance-based, third-party payment. And if it’s not on the private market, it is government-based reimbursement through Medicare and Medicaid. I realized I needed to learn much more about this idea of health sharing.
This book is a basic primer for health sharing. It educates the reader about the idea of health sharing and shows how it is a viable solution for individuals and families as they are looking to protect themselves from the financial risk imposed by healthcare costs.
At its core, health sharing is a group of individuals organized around common values and shared purpose to help one another with their medical expenses. But not limited in this capacity, these organizations are often faith-based organizations and organize around central, shared values. Throughout this book, the author not only defines health sharing organizations, but shows how it differs from traditional insurance and how it can be a viable solution for individual families.
I found this book extraordinarily helpful in my understanding of health sharing organizations. When I first began interfacing with the idea of health sharing, I had significant lack of understanding of how health sharing worked and how it could protect individuals from financial risk due to healthcare expenses. This book helped reframe my understanding. As a result, I see health sharing as one of the many viable options for healthcare cost coverage.
Healthcare is an interesting thing. It is so fundamental to who we are as human beings that live in a broken and sinful world. And there are many elements of healthcare that touch us to a core and affect who we are. Every morning I listen to the daily audio Bible podcast, and often at the end of the day’s Bible reading, there are recordings of listeners calling in with their prayer requests. Many of these center around health and healthcare related needs. Some are asking for healing, but others are simply taking comfort in the community that they find, albeit digital, of other believers who can lift up their health difficulties in prayer. We find this model exhortation in the New Testament. In Acts 2, Luke writes about the early church and describes them as selling their belongings and distributing their proceeds to any who had need. Paul picks up this idea in Galatians 6, as he encourages the believers in Galatia to bear one another’s burdens.
Health sharing is so much more than just covering financially the cost of healthcare. It is a way for individuals to gather together and care for one another in one of the most important ways that they can—their health.
Title: Health Sharing: The Authoritative Guide to America's Fastest-Growing Health Insurance Alternative
Author: Wiley P Long III
Rating: ★★★★☆
Find it on Amazon: https://link.amazon/B0230PWdP
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