'Faith care' helps families beat high premiums

Christian plans aren't insurance

Wendy Sweet rarely visits the doctor. But in October, after Blue Cross Blue Shield increased her family's monthly health insurance premium to $1,150, she sure felt like she needed one.

Sweet, 46, owns South Street Mortgage. As a small business owner, she has no one to help offset her health care costs.

So Sweet joined a small but growing number of people enrolled in faith-based alternatives to health insurance.

The Sweets are new members of Christian Care Medi-Share, a charitable ministry that collects monthly contributions and disburses them among members to pay medical bills. For $459 a month, the family receives help on costs greater than $250, up to $1million.

"We feel like this protects us in case of catastrophic events," the Charlotte mother of three said. "We can cover the other stuff with the money we save."

In a decade in which premiums have nearly doubled and the number of uninsured has grown from 38 million to 47 million, many people are searching for help.

But critics are wary of such organizations because they operate with little government oversight and don't guarantee coverage. In 2001, Bruce Hawthorn, founder of the organization that became Christian Healthcare Ministries, was accused of diverting millions of dollars for personal use.

For at least 450 people in the Charlotte region, though, faith-based charities are the only things standing between them and their doctor bills.

Sweet said she earns $150,000 to $200,000 a year. But her husband is a stay-at-home father and she said an insurance bill of more than $13,000 a year is tough to absorb.

Sweet recently took her 6-year-old daughter, Emma, to the dermatologist. Emma was diagnosed with ringworm, an infection common in small children.

The visit resulted in a $110 bill and prescriptions costing $111. If Sweet were insured, she would have likely paid a $20 co-pay for the visit, and probably half of the total cost of Emma's medicine.

But as members of Medi-Share, the Sweets had to pay out of pocket for both.

That is typical for faith cares. Most offer high-deductible, low-cost help. Members pay out of pocket for basic doctor visits, dental care, vision and prescriptions.

It also means that the programs may not work well for people suffering from chronic illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease. The expense of those problems can easily exceed the caps.

Ministry, not insurance

Medi-Share is the largest of three major faith-care organizations. Along with Samaritan Ministries and Christian Healthcare Ministries, the organizations serve about 120,000 people from California to the Carolinas.

All three operate on the same basic principles. Members must be Christian. They must attend church regularly, be nonsmokers, drink only in moderation and abstain from sex outside of marriage.

Depending on which faith care and which program, members can receive up to $1 million in help.

But ministry officials stress they are not insurance.

"What we are is a ministry," said the Rev. Howard Russell, president of Christian Healthcare Ministries. "What we are doing is not new. It's 2,000 years old. It's Christians helping Christians."

Climbing policy prices

Pam Silberman, president of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, said that more employers are dropping health insurance, leaving many people unable to afford policies.

In 2006, about 63 percent of people had work-based insurance, down from 68percent in 2000.

The average family premium, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, has grown from $6,438 in 2000 to $12,106 in 2007. The median household income in North Carolina is about $41,000.