cheap cialis online‘s all for my little ones!” src=”http://foraging4aliving.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Feb-2012-022-e1330709845678-300×143.jpg” alt=”" width=”300″ height=”143″ />It's all for my little ones!
One goal Jeremy and I have always had is for me to be home with the children and to be available on the farm. One of the main challenges we faced is paying for health insurance. We are not done having children and I have to have c-sections which only further complicates things. I love the idea of HSA’s, and we had one for 4 years through one small employer I worked for. However, by year 4 it had nearly tripled in cost and I had to fight with them every year about the premium increases. At different times we have considered insurance alternatives: Christian Healthcare Ministries, Samaritan Ministries, and Medi-Share. But something was always available with my jobs. Until now. Yes I have health insurance available. But….it is capped at $2500 per incident including maternity. On top of that the premiums are over $3700 per year and it is a 60/40 plan. A few weeks ago I received a letter saying, that while this does not meet federal mandates, they received a waiver. I felt like we were in a very precarious position.
So I spent hours finding more information about the Christian sharing alternatives. Jeremy did talk to a trusted friend and received health insurance quotes. We can almost afford it if we do not add the maternity rider. But honestly it is more than we pay for rent. We discussed having me on one of the alternatives, and the rest of the family on the other. We have prayed. I have to admit I have been ready to make the change for several weeks and did not see the benefit in having the family on separate plans. Especially in light of the additional monthly costs there would be. All of the Christian sharing plans require you to have regular church attendance if possible and place limitations on things like smoking and drinking. They of course will not provide funds for abortions. Plan members appear to be exempt from the National Healthcare plan. While the plans are similar, there are some significant differences in the 3 main Christian Sharing Plans.
Samaritan Ministries appears to be the most economical. However, you send your monthly share directly to those in need, and on months you need help, you are at the mercy of those who have received your name on their list. While it appears to be a reliable system, we did not feel comfortable with this.
Christian Healthcare Ministries has a central office which takes in and sends out monthly shares. They do have a limit of $125,000 per incident. However have a Brother’s Keeper program which for approximately $75/quarter more your whole family can be a part of, and
receive up to $1,000,000. They are currently giving codes for 2 months free and if you choose their gold plan, they allow pre-existing conditions at a limited benefit.
Medi-Share gave the most expensive quote for our family. Though it appears that with good health, we would receive a discount several months into the program. They have a network of providers you are required to use. Between this and a required savings account of some sort at their bank provider turned us off of Medi-Share.
All this said and done we have signed up with Christian Healthcare Ministries. We are relatively healthy and
avoid going to the doctor if possible. I do attempt to take the kids to well child visits, though we may be backing that off. We get vaccinations at our courthouse for free. We pay the first $500 for any incident, and any discounts we negotiate are included in that, and they will pay the rest. I am very excited about the program and feel it will help our faith grow as we help others with their medical bills!
I encourage anyone who is unhappy with insurance to look at these plans. Find the one that fits your family. Don’t forget to check places like the Better Business Bureau, they are all rated there. I believe all three plans offer discounts for referrals and I would be happy to share my number with you!
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You posted some good information for others looking for health insurance. It is wonderful that you found something you could (kind of) afford. I hope that you will be able to stop working outside of your home/farm I am sure you and your family will be much happier if you can.
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Thank you! We are all much happier with my PT job!
Health insurance is so expensive!
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And not likely to get any cheaper!
Great summary of the three. My parents had one of these while I was in junior high, and I remember it being quite frustrating for my mom with all the paperwork and follow up required.
I have briefly looked into it as an option for our family, but it doesn’t look like it would save us much off of traditional insurance since we seem to have some reason to see a doctor often. I don’t want to be in a place where I don’t take my son to the doctor because of the potential cost.
I have to admit I am nervous…. but right now it seems to be our best option. My Ob gives me a 20% up front discount if we pay cash and our family dr gives 15%. So that should help.
Nice. I would ask for bigger discounts. I made sure I had full copies of the bills for my pregnancy and delivery so I could plan ahead if we don’t have as good insurance for the next one. Our insurance gets at least a 30% discount off the billed price.
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Good to know this! I had plans to do this. But it helps to know what others have gotten! What is great, is anything we negotiate off the bill goes towards the $500 ded.
Oh my! Health insurance is very expensive where you are. I thought I paid much less than that but when I multiplied my monthly payment by 12 I got to 1992 euros per year. I didn’t know that! That’s a lot. It translates to $2600. Wow. I don’t work either. It’s a lot of money.
It’s so difficult to find the right insurance, it’s not just the money, but also what they do and don’t cover, at least here in the Netherlands, it’s very hard to make straight comparisons. I’m sticking with my insurer, which I so far have been happy with.
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It is the same here Judith, lots of big words and everyone has a different definition!
Oh the whole insurance thing drives me crazy. I hate paying into it and still having to pay the doctors.
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Me too! Somehow I get all the responsibility of doing all the research every time we need something different!
I have never heard of these companies and wasn’t even aware that there were Christian insurance companies. I agree that counting on other members to send you the money when you need it could be pretty scary. I wouldn’t choose that one, either. Thanks for this informative post. (I’m sure my first comment was much more clever, but I can’t remember exactly what I said. LOL)
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They technically are not insurance, but sharing groups. LOL I know what you mean about the clever post. Sorry for the problems!
Insurance is such an expensive need. We are thankful that my husband gets it through work. But we hate spending over $350 a month on a plan that still requires us to pay out $4,000 each year before they pay anything. In the past 3 years we have gotten close a few times but never have gone over to see the benefit.
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Yeah it is getting really bad for some families! I am hoping this works out for us!
Insurance certainly is expensive these days. My husband and I, both self-employed, pay an arm and a leg – and they just raised our rates another $106 a month beginning next month!
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I had insurance in the past that I really liked… but they went from $360ish year 1 to $425ish year 2, $600ish year 3, $900ish year 4 (I was able to get this back to 600ish). It stank! We only had 1 child during that time period.
Those are some excellent suggestions for insurance alternatives. Insurance is getting so expensive nowadays that we really do need some other ways to pay for medical visits. God bless you and your family!
Thank you! God Bless you as well!
I didn’t know about these alternatives–thank you for sharing this information! I’m fortunate right now to have decent health insurance through my husband’s job but it hasn’t always been that way.
I’m praying it stays that way for you!
My husbands work covers a good part of our insurance, thankfully!
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We are also looking into these plans… but our son has a liver disease so they may not cover him.
This is very informative- I had only heard of Medi-Share. Thank you!
Thanks for supplying a great summary of insurance choices! Definitely food for thought!
suzy
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This was an interesting post. I have never heard of these health companies and I’ve been a Christian and in the church for 12 years. Thanks for sharing new networks with us.
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Thanks for breaking down the differences in these plans! 5 years ago, before I was pregnant, I worked for a non-profit (pregnancy center) that didn’t offer insurance. We looked at all of these options and went ahead and decided to go with a high deductible plan w/o maternity. We didn’t plan on getting pregnant that year, but if we did we wanted to use a midwife and thought we’d pay out of pocket.
You can imagine the next part of the story. We did get pregnant, and sadly hadn’t realized that the laws in our state made it impossible for most midwives to practice outside of a hospital. We went with a free-standing birth center and started paying out of pocket. The birth center ended up having financial trouble and closing when I was 36 weeks.
We were left with the dilemma of traveling to another state to labor so we could do it legally, or finding an OB we trusted in 4 weeks and delivering at a hospital. B/C it was my first birth, we went with the latter. In the end I needed a blood transfusion and stayed past the 24/48 hour mark for self-pay. Our bills totalled 10′s of thousands of dollars. We filed for state assistance and used that to pay our bills even though we’d hoped to avoid it.
We are so thankful that by the time baby #2 (and now #3) came along, my husband had a job that offered good insurance. However, if that wasn’t the case we’d definitely sign up for one of the above plans. As it is, our insurance will only pay half of the expenses for our current midwife, so we’re paying $3000 (at least, assuming all goes well) out of pocket for this birth.
We have a couple of friends who use Samaritan and I’ve heard good things about them from both. I don’t have any personal experience with the others, but it really does sound like you are making the best choice for your family considering you know you’ll need surgery!!
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I am planning on working part-time instead of full-time in the fall and insurance is definitely on my mind. The cost for my son to be on my husband’s insurance is about the same as mine. The cost to add me sends it skyrocketing. I didn’t know about these alternatives so I thank you for sharing!
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great info on insurance! It’s so easy to take that for granted with a job! praying you find the right one for you and your family!
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You have given out of great info, thanks for sharing
I wasn’t aware of these alternatives. Thanks for sharing!
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You are very resourceful! And you have uncovered some interesting info- I had not heard of these “sharing” companies, so thanks for getting me up to date. And all the best with the choice you made- I hope it’s a great fit for your family.
I am so thankful everyday that we have health insurance through my husband’s work. So many people don’t. We have some members of our family with health problems so we really need insurance. Glad you found something to work for your families needs.
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Glad you found a program that works for your family
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Ahhhh medical expenses. We have great insurance and still pay about 40% of our take home pay to health care and special edcucation costs.
I believe it when they say that medical expenses are the number one reason for bancruptcy!
lisa
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Very good information. My husband has always had very good insurance, but that is changing given everything that is going on.
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I have heard of these and looked into them but right now they won’t work for our family.
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Thank you for the information on shared health plans We’ve considered looking into them, but my husband has fairly good insurance through work right now.
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I am so glad I found this post. My husband just had a very expensive hospital visit. We haven’t got all the bills yet but the ones we do have add up to 53k. We are looking to get health insurance to cover any future expenses.
I did not know there was such a thing as religious based health insurance. I learned something new today!
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Health care is this county really is a mess. Glad you were able to find a solution.
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You did a good writeup on the differences. I don’t even have insurance. Luckily my dh has VA.
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My husands work pays for his insurance completely so me and the boys have our own policy. It’s not that great of a policy but it covers all the boys well visits which is nice.
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We have a goal of me quitting my job and working with my husband (he is self-employed). I have been shopping insurance and found a few reasonable plans (we are done having children). I am worried about coverage. We have two people we know who had their own plans and everything they submitted was denied, even simple lab work! They were told it was all “pre-existing conditions” even though it wasn’t.
Ugh. Scary!
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I really appreciate this post! As a fellow believer, I could at some point also be looking into these same options as an alternative to health insurance. I love your approach in showing the pros and cons of each.
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Thanks for sharing! I was looking into Medishare, not realizing there were other similar options out there. I’m going to check out Christian Healthcare.
Thanks for sharing such the comparisons. We’ve talked about Samaritan Ministries, but I didn’t realize there were other options.
So many of the reviews I have found only mentioned maybe 2 of the options. I would guess their are more options, but these were the dominate ones I found when digging… and digging LOL
My husband, myslef and my 10 month old baby girl are all VERY fortunate because my employer offers good health insurance options. When I was reading this post (and I consider myself affluent in Health Care plans and programs – I have my health insurance license) I was shocked that your employer offers such a low grade plan. I was not surprised that it was really expensive and was not surprised that there weren’t any options because I am assuming the size of the company is very small, but 60/40 and a $2,500 cap per incident including maternity — my heart just broke for your family. I am very pleased that you took action and researched alternatives and found a good option for your family. It is very sad that an employer would ever offer that option as any type of solution. We all deserve better than that!
I’m glad to know that there are alternatives out there if something ever happened to our insurance plan. We pay a lot for it, but it gives us peace of mind to know that it is there if anything happens to the kids or to us.
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Health insurance is so expensive! We had to buy our own insurance for several years, so I understand how pricey it is. Fortunately, with my husband’s current job we are covered. I’m so glad you have found an alternative that will work for your family! That’s great!
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Thanks for sharing though I have not applied for any insurances, I know come will time I have to
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I had heard of Samaritan, but not the others. Thank you for the comparison.
Good to know there is more than one out there.
Glad you found one to fit your needs, or at least one that best fit your needs. Health Insurance is a big issue with not working, either by choice when you are young or because of retirment when you are older.
I hope it works out for you and you are able to stay home to help out and take care of your family.
See You In the Garden recently posted..Weekly Goals – March 4, 2012
Health ins. is such a pain! My husband just got a new job,and the insurance offered through his employer isn’t much less than what we would pay just getting it ourselves. Sigh.
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I have a friend who I think is in Christian Healthcare Ministries. My hubby and I have talked about it…but as for right now we are just sticking w/ what his business offers.
I have never heard of these options before. Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you for sharing this with us. I didn’t know about these plans. We have great medical with my husband’s work, but this is great to know for the people in our life who may not have medical.
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