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Give the gift of Scratchers from the California Lottery. A little play can make your day. Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim. Today on Radical Personal Finance, Part 5 of our health insurance series. Today we tackle health care sharing ministries. These are not health insurance options, but they are fantastic competition to health insurance.

It's my personal choice for how I choose to pay for the health care costs for my family. Today I'm going to share with you a little bit of background on health care sharing ministries, as well as my own experience, and give you some suggestions as to how you can investigate these options for yourself.

Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My name is Joshua Sheets. Hope you enjoy bringing the music back.

I didn't banish the music from the show. I really like it. In fact, I'm getting in a better mood right now, and I hope you are too, just from listening to the music. Today we, again, discuss health care sharing ministries, and I've referenced this throughout this series that we've been working on with regard to how to pay for your health costs.

To refresh your memory, this is now part five of that series. We began with a discussion of health insurance, the use of health insurance. We began by clarifying that health insurance and health care are not synonymous, and you should make a distinction between them. We went on to talk about a primary focus of us, which has been the Affordable Care Act legislation.

I shared with you in part two why I personally oppose the Affordable Care Act and kind of some of the ideological background to that. In part one, I gave you some of my insight and just suggestions on how to approach health insurance as well. In part three of the show, we talked about the premium tax credit, what it is, how it works, and how to maximize your cash from it.

Premium tax credit is a powerful tax credit that can be worth many thousands of dollars to those of you who are participating in the health insurance exchanges as a way to significantly diminish your cost. In part four, we talked about how to avoid and evade the Obamacare tax penalty.

This is the penalty that comes to you where if you don't have health and maintain health insurance, you are subject to a penalty. I gave you all the ways to cover all the exemptions where you can apply for an exemption. That's the avoidance. I gave you my understanding of the law and the penalties and sanctions of the law if you choose to evade the tax penalty, which is just simply to say, "Hey, I'm sorry, but I refuse to pay this tax penalty." That is an option.

I gave you the information that I'm aware of, which is basically that there are no real penalties for that. As long as you don't wind up in a situation where the IRS has your tax returns or where they owe you a tax refund, then in general, there seems to be under the current law, no teeth.

That was discussed in detail in episode 403 of the show, part four of this health insurance series. Today, we tackle health care sharing ministries. The first thing to be clear of is, as you will read about a gazillion times when researching some of the health care sharing ministries, health care sharing ministries are not health insurance companies.

I want to be clear right up front here as well. They are not health insurance companies. They are very different. They come with unique risks because they are not health insurance companies. But in some ways, they are competing in the marketplace with health insurance companies and they function as one of the exemptions for the Obamacare tax penalty.

So if you participate in a health care sharing ministry, as I choose to do, you will be exempt from the Obamacare tax penalty. And today, all of those details will be discussed with you. Before we get to that, I want to discuss with you the sponsor of today's show, which is Paladin Registry.

Now, way back in episode 248 of Radical Personal Finance, I interviewed Jack Waymire, who is the founder of the Paladin Registry. If you've not heard that show, after listening to this ad, I would recommend you go back and the first thing that you should do is go back and listen to episode 248.

It was entitled "One Great Way to Start Your Search for a Financial Advisor." Interview with Jack Waymire, founder of the Paladin Registry. And you can find that either by going back in the RSS feed on your podcast device, the application that you use, your so-called podcatcher on your phone.

You can just scroll back in the feed to 248, download that show and listen to it, or just go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/248 and that will pull up that episode right there. But in that episode, you'll hear an over an hour interview with Jack Waymire and you'll find out the story behind Paladin.

The short version is this. He was a financial advisor and he recognized that there's really not a great way to go about finding a good financial advisor. The way that most people find a financial advisor is through word of mouth, through a friend of theirs that introduced somebody to them or just by asking around.

Now, if you have friends who have good taste in financial advisors, that's probably a good way to start. I recommend that. Get endorsements, get referrals. But if you don't have that starting place, that may not be the right place to start for you. So if you don't have a recommendation from somebody, where do you go?

What do you do? There are literally thousands of financial companies, both large and small, name brand and non-name brand, competing for your business. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of different business models. And as a layperson, it may be difficult for you to come in and try to investigate somebody and figure out if they're going to be a great fit for you.

Well, Paladin Registry is a step in the right direction to try to help you solve that problem. The way it works is Jack Waymire's team there at Paladin Registry goes out and they take applications from different financial advisors that would want to be listed in their service. These financial advisors pay a fee to Paladin in order to be listed, but they have to pass an exhaustive, extensive set of screenings where they go through their disciplinary records, they go through their background, their educational credentials and qualifications, etc.

And in the process of going through all of those details, they go through and they vet them thoroughly. So at least they know, "Hey, this guy's not a crook. There's no indication that he's a crook. And this guy or gal should be knowledgeable and has some level of expertise." And they have a significant, an above-board vetted business model process.

They have experience. They have qualifications. They're a good place to start. And then Paladin Registry makes that registry system and they provide a page for people like you, a consumer who's looking for a financial advisor. And here as we go into a new year, it's a great time to go and look for a financial advisor.

Many people make New Year's resolutions surrounding money and they want to go and search for a financial advisor. So you go on their website and the way that you do it is go through this link, radicalpersonalfinance.com/paladin, P-A-L-A-D-I-N, and that will be linked in the blog post for today's show.

It's also on the website at radicalpersonalfinance.com on the right-hand side, radicalpersonalfinance.com/paladin. And that forwards you through to the Paladin Registry landing page. It's important that you go through that link so that they track the fact that the referral came through me and then that way I get paid a commission for sending you to them.

When you get to that landing page, you'll put in your name and your address, your phone number, your email address, and how much money you have. You'll put all that information in there and they'll take that and go through and they will assign sometimes two, sometimes three, usually about three different potential advisors to you.

And they'll suggest that these advisors have all been vetted and you should start your search with them. Those advisors will get in contact with you and you have the opportunity and the option to consider hiring them. They can compete for your business and that's how you should view it is that when you hire a financial advisor, you are hiring an employee.

And so thus, you need to have employees who compete for a job opportunity as your financial advisor. Now, I can't promise to you that you're going to find your next great financial advisor there. Most of the feedback that I have received from listeners who've worked with Paladin has been positive.

Many of you have found a great financial advisor there. Some of you have not and said, "Well, we didn't really like any of these people, "but at least the process was helpful "and we found someone else somewhere else." Totally fine. I don't get paid whether you choose one of their advisors or not.

I only get paid by your going through the process and going through that tracking link. So I don't have a financial interest in your actual choice. Of course, I hope for your sake that you choose somebody good through there. But if you're looking for a financial advisor, you're interested in starting off the new year 2017 right with your money, consider going through there and searching for a financial advisor to consult with you on your situation.

RadicalPersonalFinance.com/Paladin or you'll find the link in the show notes for today's show. Now, back to healthcare sharing ministries. I emphasize to you again that healthcare sharing ministries are not health insurance. Let me describe what they are and how they work in a big picture way so that you can understand what these companies offer.

There are basically five currently competing in the marketplace. There is at least one small newsletter, maybe a couple of small newsletters that in some ways are similar to these five, but they, to the best of my knowledge, are so minor as to be insignificant in the scope of this discussion.

So the first one, and these are in no particular order, just here in my notes, one is Samaritan Ministries. That's the one that I and my families are members of, Samaritan Ministries. There's Christian Healthcare Ministries. There is MediShare, which is also an affiliate or component with an organization called Christian Care Ministry, Liberty HealthShare, and Altrua HealthShare.

These are the five that I'm aware of and that I have researched extensively. These five, you'll notice a theme. You'll notice that all of these have some religious connotation. Samaritan Ministries, of course, refers to the biblical account of the Good Samaritan, which most people know coming from the Gospel of Luke.

Christian Healthcare Ministries, its name identifies it, so does the Christian Care Ministry. These names identify it as a religious organization. Liberty HealthShare and Altrua HealthShare are also religious in nature, but their names reflect a slight difference. There are, as I'll discuss during the context of today's show, variations in terms of the theological understanding of these organizations, but they are all religious in nature.

They all have a religious screening test for your participation. You have to affirm an assent to some sort of statement of doctrine, statement of belief, in order to participate. Those statements range from very exclusive, very orthodox, to more inclusive and somewhat open, to put it that way. And that will depend on the company that you choose.

These companies are all built upon a principle that comes from a biblical principle found in the Book of Galatians, where in the Book of Galatians, Christians are commanded to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. That's the actual quote from Galatians 6.2. It says, "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." The idea here is that when someone is faced with a significant amount of health expenses, the Christian community should come together, the church should come together and support that person.

Now that's how it functions in the Christian church. That's how finances function in the Christian church. But what these companies have done is they've brought an additional level of formality and organization to it. And it primarily works around a system of newsletters and a system of centralized accounting. All of these ministries, if people subscribe to them, they subscribe to them and pay a certain amount on a monthly basis.

So for example, with the one that I participate in, Samaritan Ministries, my monthly fee at the moment is about $460 a month. Now that money never gets sent to the company with Samaritan Ministries. With some other companies it's different. But if my family, just recently we're having our third baby, it's a boy by the way, just announced it on Facebook, it'll be a baby boy, we're expecting our third baby this next year in 2017.

And so as a component of that, I've been going through this whole process the last month or two. We've gone ahead and submitted the bill for the midwife bill for the delivery of our son. So the midwife bill comes out to, for the sake of round numbers, it's about six grand.

I submit that $6,000 bill to a central Samaritan Ministries administrative team. They look at the bill, they confirm its authenticity, that yes indeed, Joshua and Tiffany do have a bill, a midwife bill here, it is $6,000. And then what they do is they publish that bill to their newsletter subscribers.

And they organize a certain number of subscribers to send money to my wife and me to pay for that health insurance, to pay for that health cost of the midwife bill. And so to use simplified math, if the fee is about $500 a month, they'll send that bill to 12 different families.

And then my wife and I, after they publish that notice in the newsletter, my wife and I will receive 12, a little bit more than that, but about 12 different checks, individual checks from other families in the network. And those 12 checks will total up to be about $5,000.

That's basically the way that it works. It's people coming together and agreeing voluntarily to send one another money. Now, that's how the health claim cost works. If I have a health expense, I submit it that way. As a participant in the system, every month I also am on the paying end.

So each month I receive a newsletter from Samaritan Ministries. It shows up in my mailbox in that newsletter. In fact, I need to go get mine. Hang on. All right, got it. So just sent out the check last week and I sent out a check for $465.30 to a family where the husband had received treatment for transient global amnesia.

And evidently he had been treated for this medical condition and had incurred medical costs for it. That's all the information that I know, but that is shared with me as a member of the subscriber. And so my wife and I, we write out a little check for the $465.30.

We always put in a little note. We send a family picture. I always put in a business card for Radical Personal Finance in case they're interested in checking out my show. I put in a business card for my Encouraging Christian Fathers podcast that my dad and I host together in case they might like to know about that.

Maybe they have kids and they'd be interested in listening to that. And we write a little note of encouragement to them and drop that in the mail. And that happens every month. And so it's a different family every month. And so in many ways, this is fulfilling that basic challenge of health costs, which is how do we pay for health costs in a way that is manageable on a monthly basis.

Health costs can be difficult to handle because they are lumped together. So they're very lumpy. You have a $6,000 midwife bill for the delivery of your baby. That can be hard to budget in in advance. And so it's very helpful to be able to just simply have that published and then to receive the checks for that cost when needed.

Now, Samaritan Ministries is the only one of these organizations where the checks go directly from one subscriber to another subscriber. And I like that. It's one of the benefits to me of Samaritan Ministries. But the other organizations are every bit as legitimate. It's just that instead of the checks going directly from one subscriber to another subscriber, each subscriber sends in the check to a central administrative team and the money is held in an escrow account.

And then the central administrative team sends the money through to the person who is in need. So right here you can see the difference between health insurance and a health care sharing ministry. The major difference is that the ministry, the organization, the company that is involved in this has no legal liability whatsoever to pay any health expenses for their members.

That's very different than a health insurance company. In a health insurance company, if I have medical expenses and I have insurance, I have a legal contract with the health insurance company and they are required by law to pay any expenses that are covered under the terms of the contract that I have with them.

With a health care sharing ministry, there is no such legal requirement. Legally, all the central administrative team is doing is coordinating the transfer of funds from one subscriber, one member to another member. That's it. This information is written again and again and again into the information from these various companies.

For example, let me read two paragraphs here from the Altrua HealthShare guidelines document. Quoting here, "This is not a legally binding agreement to reimburse any member for medical needs a member may incur, but is instead an opportunity for members to care for one another in a time of need, to present their medical needs to other members as outlined in the membership guidelines.

The financial assistance members receive will come from other members' monthly contributions that are placed in an escrow account, not from Altrua HealthShare." Later they quote this, "Altrua HealthShare is an escrow agent that administers voluntary sharing of health care needs for qualifying members. The membership is based on a religious tradition of mutual aid, neighborly assistance, and burden sharing.

The membership does not subsidize self-destructive behaviors and lifestyles, but is specifically tailored for individuals who maintain a healthy lifestyle, make responsible choices in regards to health and care, and believe in helping others. The Altrua HealthShare membership is not health insurance." And each of these companies has a similar statement and many similar statements in their literature.

Those of you who are astute listeners, considering carefully the impact and meaning, you should notice that those words are pretty heavy. There is a lot of significant meaning in those words. Now there are a ton of advantages and benefits of health care sharing ministries. You should also question and seriously research how confident you can be in the claims of these companies.

That's what I did before I ever joined Samaritan Ministries. And there's a long and rich tradition of these companies being effective. They, depending on which company, some of these companies, of these five companies, again, that I have found as all being active, Samaritan Ministries, Christian Health Care Ministries, MediShare, Liberty HealthShare, and Altrua HealthShare, all five of these companies have differing lengths of history.

But some of these newsletters and things have been working for over 30 years. They have all experienced a substantial increase in the number of subscribers, members, and interested people in the wake of the Affordable Care Act legislation. See, this way of handling medical expenses is something that many of us have done, especially those of us who are Christians.

Many of us have handled our finances in this way in the past. Of course, this community aspect of handling finances and expenses is not limited only to health expenses. And it's not limited to any – just one religious tradition. It can be experienced on a community-wide basis. In U.S.

American history and in areas where you have a more rural, tight-knit community, there is a tradition, a rich tradition of barn raising where when one person has a need, the whole community comes together for a day of hard work and raises the barn. In different ethnic communities, you'll find this.

Even existing today, you'll find in immigrant – ethnic immigrant communities in the United States, there are strong systems of finance where they band together within an ethnic group or within a family or within a religious affiliation to support one another financially. There are systems of loans and systems of credit, systems of helping one another.

In the Christian church, there's a rich, rich tradition of this and it comes from that scripture that I read earlier. There's a scripture that says, "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." In the Book of Acts, one of the most remarkable stories in the Book of Acts which for those of you who are not Bible readers, the Book of Acts contains the history of the early church after Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension to heaven.

As recorded in the Bible, we have the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts was written by a man named Luke who was a medical doctor and he went and chronicled much of the history of the early church. Notably, after what is called the Day of Pentecost which was a day of mass conversion after Jesus ascended into heaven and then there was a day – there was a feast a couple of weeks later and the Holy Spirit was poured out into the believers on the Day of Pentecost.

There was a time where a man named Peter stood up and publicly preached there in Jerusalem. He preached a message and on that day, 3,000 people were converted, believed the message that was proclaimed by the man Peter and the church grew by about 3,000 people. Well, in those early days, what was actually happening in the historical context was there was a special religious holiday and feast called Pentecost that was happening there in Jerusalem which drew many people from all over the world.

So, there were many people visiting as I understand the history. There were many people visiting from all throughout that part of the world. Then these miraculous events happened which are recorded in the first few chapters in the Book of Acts. The miraculous events of, of course, Jesus' resurrection after his crucifixion, his ascension into heaven as witnessed by the disciples and then his command to go and to wait in Jerusalem until they're filled with the Holy Spirit.

Then on the day that the Holy Spirit came, there's this – what's described as written in the scripture is that the people are together, the believers are there together having a prayer meeting basically and all of a sudden, there comes a huge sound from heaven. It sounds like a mighty rushing wind is what the scripture says and it fills the whole house where they're sitting.

Tongues that look like tongues of fire, flaming tongues of fire appeared over the head of each of the people and all of the people that were there gathered were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in various languages. So, all of the people heard the noise and the commotion coming from this one particular house where they were gathered together and all of the onlookers and the passersby thought that the believers were drunk and they said, "What's wrong with these people?

They're drunk." But then they realized that these visitors from all over the world, from different people, Parthenians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia and Judea and Cappadocia and Pontus and Asia and Phrygia and Pamphylia and Egypt and all of these different people are hearing the believers that were there gathered speak in their own language.

And so, there's a miraculous transformation of languages and so that's the context in which this sermon is preached. Well, now you have a remarkable problem and I'm trying to give some context so you understand the historical context of this especially as it relates to financial planning. You have a problem.

You have visitors from all over the world who had traveled, very difficult and long travel, to be in Jerusalem for the special feast and then you have this incredible supernatural working, something that the people there had never ever seen with clear evidence of the supernatural in a way that was undeniable.

Nobody wanted to leave. They didn't want to go home. They didn't want to miss it. Scripture records that all of the believers are meeting house to house basically all day every day just super excited about everything that's happening. And many, you know, each day there are more and more people who are coming in and who are being saved and who are believing the gospel message and who are being brought in and made part of the church there in Jerusalem.

But how do you handle the money? That's the major problem. How do you handle the money? Who are they going to stay? After all, they had been, many of them, the way the calendar of feasts works is that the Passover festival is about 50 days before the Pentecost festival and many of those people would have come to Jerusalem to be there for Passover and then they would have remained until Pentecost.

Of course, that's not, that's some amount of speculation but that would be, as I understand the historical record, that would be in line with the common event, sort of a pilgrimage, a religious pilgrimage that many of the Jews made. And so they're running out of food and they're running out of money and what do they do?

Well, and that's it in that time the scripture records that the people came together and they had all things in common, meaning they shared their resources. Scripture records that all who believed were together and had all things in common and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved, reading there from the beginning of Acts.

So in that context, there's a tradition that's built in the Christian church of how to handle money. And I should in the future, I intend in the future to do shows on this as far as the way that finances are instructed to work in the Christian church. Because it's quite unique in terms of other financial systems, but it's all built upon this basis of seeing needs and then choosing each person to meet those needs.

But it's not done under the sense of compulsion. It's not done under somebody being forced to do it. It's under a voluntary choice. And each person in Christian doctrine, each person is accountable to God directly for what they do and how to do it. There's a truly incredible account recorded in the Bible a couple of chapters later in the beginning of Acts about a couple named Ananias, who was the husband and his wife, Sapphira.

And they were caught up in this enthusiasm and this fervor for everything that God was doing there in that time. And they decided that they wanted to participate. And so they had an investment property and they went and they sold their investment property. But they wanted to do two things.

They wanted to participate in the community that was there. And they also wanted to keep back some of the money for themselves. But they wanted to have the social benefits of appearing as though they were very generous. And so they sold their investment property and they took the money out of the escrow account and they came before Peter, who was one of the leaders there in that day.

He was one of the disciples who had followed Jesus and was very integral to the story and to the people that Jesus worked with closely. They came before Peter and they put the money there before Peter and they said, "Here's the money that we would like to contribute." And they made it seem as though they were giving all of the money.

So the Holy Spirit supernaturally revealed to Peter that they hadn't given all of the money. And so Peter asked him and said, "Why did Satan put it in your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the money?" And then here is one of the major points, fascinating story.

Forgive me if I'm getting a little bit off track. The doctrine is this, "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but to God." And then on hearing those words, the man Ananias was supernaturally struck dead.

And they took him out and buried him. God killed him immediately for his lie and his deceit. Not for not giving the money. It was his to give from a free heart, but for the deceit. Story goes on a few minutes later. His wife comes in and the scripture records that they had conspired together to do this act of deceit together to say that they received the certain amount that they were giving when in reality they'd sold their investment property for more.

And so the same thing happens where Peter then asks his wife, "Did you sell the property for this amount of money?" And she says, "Yes, we did." And once again, Peter says, "The men who just buried your husband out back in the yard or wherever they buried him are at the door." And then she was immediately supernaturally struck dead for her deceit.

And they carried her out and buried her. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all those who heard of these things, what the Bible story teaches. So it's in that context that the early church and the practice in the early Christian church came about the use of the handling and the use of money.

Now that fun kind of party atmosphere continued for a time almost in many ways could be compared to analogous to a honeymoon period in the history of the Christian church. So there was a honeymoon period and then great persecution came and God brought persecution against the Christians, which then immediately drove Christians out through all corners of the world.

And then the Christian gospel message, that was where it was initially spread, was based upon persecution that came. They could no longer stay in one place. They're in Jerusalem and they were spread throughout the world. And fast forward 2,000 years later and we have the history that we have today of the spread of Christianity all around the world.

So all of that to say, forgive me for getting a little bit off track, but I think that'll be interesting to some of you, especially to many of you who don't read the Bible. All of that to say that these are some of the things that influence how Christians handle money.

So for me as a Christian and as a member of a Christian church, I always have this safety net. This safety net in the Christian church where if I have a need that I cannot handle, if I have a need that I can't handle in my family, I know that the other men and women in my church will step in and will help me to bear that need.

Now this brings an interesting challenge because there is no method of coercion in the Christian church to make this happen. In many ways, the Christian church is the ultimate voluntarist society. For those of you who are interested in political philosophy, this is why libertarianism is the Christian philosophy of political action that I read when I study the scripture.

But you don't have any sense of compulsion. There is no coercion. But rather there is a voluntary choice to come together in a community spirit. And this community spirit is driven by a couple of simple principles. I read earlier the scripture that says, "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." But two verses later it says, "For each will have to bear his own load." And so the first principle is that each person must bear their own load.

The Bible teaches that if a man doesn't work, don't let him eat. Each person is required to work according to their capacity. And one of the major reasons that's given in how Christians view money, one of the major reasons for working is so that each person may have something to give.

Christians are not given the opportunity or the option to work only enough to meet their own needs. Each person is commanded to work so that he may have something to give. And this brings a -- this is one of the ways where these needs are financed. But there is an accountability and this is where -- why I've gone into this in such detail to connect it back to the structure of the healthcare ministries.

I love the structure of these healthcare sharing ministries. Now, if -- let me pause just a moment. If I were not legally required to maintain health insurance, I'm not sure that I would always participate in one of these formal organizations. And I think there are many people who would not have participated in one of these formal organizations in the past.

Because many of us rely upon our churches and the support there in our churches as that safety net. That has happened informally in the sense that without the use of a specific membership or subscription role, there's a significant structure and order within Christian communities. But that's happened informally for centuries, for millennia.

And again, Christians are not the only one that have had this structure. But with the requirements of the Affordable Care Act legislation requiring people legally to participate in some form of organized health insurance or an exemption such as a healthcare sharing ministry. This I think is driving a lot of people to participate in the healthcare sharing ministries in order to satisfy that legal requirement without violating their conscience.

Now, here's why I love the healthcare sharing ministry concept. It brings an appropriate alignment of the incentives for everyone who's involved. It's a simple example. In – just very practical. One of the worst things that happens in the US-American health insurance system is people get accustomed to relying on their health insurance provider to pay and to negotiate their medical bills instead of negotiating them themselves.

Well, this leads to a gross imbalance and a very inefficient medical market. One of the best suggestions that I saw come out of the health insurance debates over the last decade was the use of health savings accounts and high deductible health plans. Because under the use of a high deductible health plan, people had an incentive to stop and to first negotiate their medical costs.

And I've been involved in this many times. If you are going to pay a check – last week we had an ultrasound. That's how we learned that our baby was a boy. If you're going to write a check for an ultrasound, you're going to go ahead and probably shop around instead of just showing up and not asking about the fees.

It's remarkable how little people know about many of their healthcare cost fees. And there are less expensive options available all around for medical services, many, many options. So when I participate in a healthcare sharing ministry and I know that I'm going to be bearing the cost up front for my healthcare expenses, I have the incentive to investigate the fees and to negotiate.

Now, one of the most valuable things of a healthcare sharing ministry is that it's an exclusive group of people. There are filtering mechanisms and screens in place in order to make sure that certain people are participating and certain people are not. I'll go over those requirements in a moment.

But this I think is the biggest danger as religious liberty in the United States of America seems to be continually restricted more and more. I think this will be the biggest danger legally speaking for the existence of healthcare sharing ministries is based upon these requirements. But under the current law, these organizations are permitted legally to discriminate in who their members are.

There are many levels of discrimination. For example, one level of discrimination is the statements of belief that are used as a screening device. So I can be confident that if I am receiving a bill and I'm sending a check out to help somebody with a health insurance – excuse me, a healthcare cost.

See, even if you do a podcast on the difference between healthcare and health insurance, we're still so utterly infected that my words slip up. So I can be confident that if I'm receiving a bill, that I'm receiving it for at least somebody who has made a profession of a certain belief system.

There are also many screens in terms of lifestyle behaviors. Simple example, none of the healthcare sharing ministries allow participants or members who smoke, who use tobacco products. None of the – not cigarettes and not ongoing smoking. None of the healthcare sharing ministries allow people who drink alcohol to access or who use illegal drugs.

None of the healthcare sharing ministries permit people who are not restricting sexual activity to a male and female marriage relationship. So these are all attestations that are made and so you can be more confident as a member that, OK, the people who I'm participating in this membership organization with are people who are choosing and who are saying we follow these standards.

But then again, even the screening criteria go still further. So these organizations publish lists of the specific types of things that they will not cover in terms of medical expenses. There are many medical expenses that the health insurance system would legally be required to cover that a healthcare sharing ministry right up front states that they will not participate in.

Some of these things are just simple and practical. Samaritan Ministries will not publish needs for accidents to teeth that occur while eating. For whatever reason, it's a simple practical thing. They won't publish costs that come from armed conflict. So these are just simple non-ideological things, just practical areas of protection.

But many of the restrictions are ideological. As an example, they won't cover expenses for abortion. They won't cover expenses for contraception or sterilization. These are all things that are opposed to Christian doctrine and so thus they will put a screening device there. So if you choose to read those things and you voluntarily say, "Hey, I'm OK with that," then you're building a community of people who are more inclined to believe similar things.

And that leads to an affinity, an affinity for the group, a greater degree of trust. We generally tend to trust people who are more like us whether we should or shouldn't. That's another question. But we tend to trust people who are more like us. Even for me, it leads to greater motivation to say, "How can I get expenses more cheaply?" It leads to greater motivation to say, "How can I lower the costs?" Rather than what can often happen on the flip side is when you don't have any particular identification with the group of people that you're involved financially with.

You just say, "Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's covered. Health insurance covers it." There is a marked difference in my experience and behavior when I was – I think it was Humana. When I was a member of Humana as far as my group health insurance versus now with my membership in Samaritan Ministries.

It's a big difference. Whether there should be or shouldn't be, I don't know. But there is. So I love how the incentives are aligned. I appreciate deeply how this allows me by choosing voluntarily to participate in an organization like Samaritan Ministries or like any of these other ones. I appreciate deeply how I'm able to escape some of the significant moral conflicts that can come in with spending decisions that are made in other contexts.

I can be much more confident sending off the money when it's been screened according to these ways. Now, one point of clarification for those of you who would see many areas differently. Some of these organizations will not participate in medical expenses that are related to certain things where you would say, "Well, wait a second.

What's going on with that?" as an example. With most of these organizations, a pregnancy for an unwed mother, even if the unwed mother is an individual member of the healthcare sharing organization, that will not be publishable to the members of that organization. Now, that's not to say – and some of them have exceptions in the case of rape.

So that if there is a rape and if it's reported and there's a police report for it, then there will be an exception for that. Many people would read that and would be immediately be offended by that to say, "Well, does not the unwed mother – does she not deserve support?

Does she not deserve care, proper medical care, et cetera?" What about – you have a war on women, a war on unwed mothers. After all, here's the allegation that would come. After all, you Christians are opposed to abortion but yet you're not willing to step in and to help somebody who's an unwed mother and that's so hypocritical.

How can you be pro-life if you're not pro-life for everybody? Now, I deeply appreciate an organization like these healthcare sharing ministries making that exception because it's not to say that an unwed mother doesn't need help. It is to say that certain difficult situations like that need a much closer form of accountability than can be provided from an impersonal organization, an impersonal administrative team many states away simply organizing certain details for medical expenses.

You need a closer system of accountability. Back to the voluntary nature of charitable contributions. We don't force people to pay for things and call it charity. Charity is not – charity when it's forced. And so when you're in a situation of charity, you need to be close enough to the situation to discern what's actually the good thing that can happen here, that should happen here.

If you take away the natural penalty for sin, to use Christian phraseology, if you take away the natural penalty for sin, you take away some of the results, the sanctions, the negative consequences that come as a result of behavior. The Christian terminology would be the penalty for sin. Any sexual conduct outside of a male and female marriage in – according to the teaching of the Bible is sin and is impermissible.

That would be the teaching there. Or if you just wanted to apply it to a broader ethical system without a religiously charged word such as sin, you could just simply talk about the consequences of actions. If somebody breaks something intentionally or through carelessness or negligence and then that's automatically covered by an insurance policy, you're going to lose the natural repercussion of the behavior.

It's much healthier for somebody – if my child – simple example. If my child is negligent and my child throws a baseball and breaks the neighbor's window, if the child was negligent – and I'm assuming here that perhaps there had been a warning. Perhaps there – I'm assuming there's a basis to expect a certain level of confidence or a certain level of competence of – in decisions that the child should be expected to be careful.

We've reached a certain age. But under those conditions, if a child of a certain age has been negligent, has been warned and breaks a window by throwing a baseball, an errant baseball, I don't want – as a good father, I don't want to remove the natural consequence for that action by me marching over with my checkbook and writing my neighbor's – my neighbor the check.

Now, I may need to do that in order to properly satisfy the relationship with my neighbor. I'm responsible for my son. I'm responsible for his actions while he's under my roof. And so in order for me to make sure that my neighbor's property is properly replaced, I need to go over with the checkbook.

But I'm then going to require the money from my son. Or if he doesn't have the money, I'm going to require him to work to make restitution to me for his negligence. Simple system of consequences. So there are many difficult situations that you can't be close enough when you're participating in a subscriber to a newsletter situation.

There are many difficult situations that you can't be close enough to discern. And those should be left to the context of the local community. A simple example of this would be care for widows and orphans. One of the strongest and strictest scriptural commands for Christians is to care for widows and orphans.

This is very, very strong. However, it's not a blanket statement to care for widows. Rather, there are qualifications. Just because somebody is a widow doesn't automatically by classification or category entitle them to financial support from their local church. Rather, the scripture gives very clear qualifications for their virtue, for their behavior.

They're required to be a widow of virtue. And there are some specific qualifications laid out for that. Now again, back to the voluntary nature of this, this is how you have an accurate and appropriate way of handling money. Nobody is required from a system of coercion to contribute a certain amount to, say, a widow in that situation to support them.

That's very different than a system like Social Security where each person is required by coercion to participate in the system. Nobody is required in the Christian church to participate. Christians are commanded to do that, but it's up to each person's individual obedience to the command of God to respond in that context.

So, the widow who is in need has no entitlement automatically to another person's money. The money that is given by the members of the church to support the widow is given freely by the members of the church, freely in response to a commandment directly from God, not from another person.

Now, the widow on the other hand is not required or coerced into behaving in a certain way. It's not, "You must live this way or else." It's just that there's a natural benefit. If she is a widow of virtue, she will probably be supported by the local church. If she's not, there's a simple system of accountability.

So, I'm going long on that, but this is a remarkably and radically different approach to handling money, to handling things. And it's embodied in these healthcare-sharing ministries. This long tradition is embodied in the way that these ministries and these organizations operate. Because at no point in time, if I experience significant financial problems, if I experience a significant health expense, at no point in time do I have a legal right to sue the ministry organization or to sue the other members and subscribers to put a legal obligation on them to pay for my expenses.

My expenses, my health costs, always remain my responsibility alone. Now, in subscribing to one of these healthcare-sharing ministry organizations, you're doing so with the expectation that you're going to help me in my time of need, and I'm going to help you in your time of need as long as we're voluntarily choosing to participate in this particular organization, this particular agreement.

But there's a great deal of accountability here. Where at any point in time, if there are problems, we can all bail. And that brings an appropriate level of proper consequences for actions, proper sanctions. And I, in case it's not obvious to you, I love this type of system. It can only work in certain ways and in certain times with certain people, but I love this type of system.

It's a voluntary system. And I think there are many things that can and have and should be organized along these similar principles. And it's my deep desire and hope that these healthcare-sharing ministries will have a long and bright future. And I'm happy to see many people participating in them.

Personally, I was deeply concerned about the potential future of these organizations over the last year because I expected that we would be facing at this point in time President-elect Hillary Clinton. And almost all of the inertia seems to be on the side of those who would desire to restrict religious liberty and with those who would desire to curtail the ability of people to choose what they will and will not participate in.

And some of these restrictions that are written in the guidelines, even the ones that I have referenced, in a broader context outside of the radical personal finance community, much of what I have said in today's show as far as these restrictions would be considered bigotry, would be considered hate speech, it would be considered politically unacceptable speech.

Now as we look forward to President-elect Trump's administration, presidential administration, I am slightly more optimistic. Let me rephrase. I'm more optimistic that organizations like this have a future, but I'm pretty concerned about whether that's all talk and puffery or if that's actual – if there will be an actual change in the tenor of the direction of religious liberty and of people's right to free association and to choose certain things.

I'm also deeply concerned about the changes in the Affordable Care Act. So we will see because there's a great danger. I mean these organizations exist and they have a rich history, but they are favored under the Affordable Care Act as a specific exemption. And this is the type of thing where legislative changes could remove that exemption.

And so therefore, it's not that the organizations would seek to exist, but it is true however that the legal status would be different as far as how they are viewed and how they're used. Incidentally, I think this is one of the major political questions in our day that resulted in many people like me choosing to support Donald Trump for the American presidency rather than Hillary Clinton.

Many people were surprised and consider things to be an affirmation of his personal character, et cetera, things like that. I think it's more deeply that people like me, many people like me recognize how fleeting and ephemeral some of these rights are, right to free association, right to choose what you participate in, what you choose not to participate in.

Some of these basic tenets of religious liberty in the United States, it's – we live in interesting times. Now, I don't – for those of you who get discouraged by such things, you ought not to be. It just simply means that your life may or may not look a little bit different, but depending on the type of situation that you face.

But there are truths and there are aspects of life that go far beyond your individual happiness and your individual fulfillment. So that's a basic overview of I guess the philosophy of these ministries. Frankly, I did get a little bit deeper in the weeds than my outline anticipated there. But I know that many of you will find that to be interesting.

At this point, I want to discuss some of the different companies and just some of the similarities and differences. I'm hedging here to see whether I should start a separate episode. I'm going to continue on with this one. Frankly, the podcast format is not a great format for a detailed comparison, a comparison chart of each of the individual company.

I've worked on that and I worked on it and I labored over that in preparation for this show until I ultimately realized I just can't do it in a podcast format, at least not in a way that would be interesting. And so I desire to complete here a document or a page that I'll put on the site that will demonstrate.

But for now, you'll just need to go and demonstrate the differences. But for now, you'll need to go and research these different companies. They all work similarly. There are a few exceptions and here are some of the major ones. First, with regard to finances, as far as the actual cost, each of these programs has in many ways a similar cost.

They have a few different structures. Without going into all the details in an audio format, it would just simply be a measure of in many ways, like you would compare health insurance policies based upon deductibles and based upon monthly cost, you can choose with some of these companies different types of programs.

For example, Christian Healthcare Ministries has what they call a gold program, a silver program, and a bronze program. Those different numbers would have different amounts of personal responsibility. The gold would have $500 of personal responsibility per unit in their membership system. The silver would have $1,000 and the bronze would have $5,000.

So that would be an example where you can choose depending on your financial considerations. An organization like Samaritan Ministries does not have that same approach to the different levels like that. But of course, they do have different options depending on whether you are an individual or whether you have a larger family, more individuals.

Some of these, if you have a larger family, let's say you have many children or you have fewer children, you can factor that in. Samaritan Ministries is an example, the one that I participate in. If you have a family of, I think it's three or more people, it doesn't matter how many kids you have, you're going to pay exactly the same cost.

Well, to a family with many children, that can be an incredible help to know that you're going to be paying a systematic cost. One of the other ones in looking at the different levels, there are different levels per unit per number of children. So you can consider that. Probably some of the biggest questions for you is going to be the history.

It's also going to be the way that the programs are set up and it will probably be theological distinctions and lifestyle practices. So with regard to the history, you can research the amount of the time that each of these has been in existence. Some of them have been longer than others.

Some of them have changed recently. So you should look at that. For example, Altrua HealthShare is the least popular. I would guess that Samaritan Ministries and MediShare and also Christian are probably the most popular. But these numbers are changing and it's difficult for me to get the exact data as far as how big they are.

It doesn't mean that Altrua is not a good choice, but there are differences between them. Theologically, depending on your personal beliefs, of course you may not qualify at all. Many of you who are listening to this show are not Christians. You're not religious in any way and so you wouldn't be able to give an affirmative statement to any of these statements.

And there is a system of authentication. When you apply with Samaritan Ministries, for example, the one that I'm with, when you apply, you have to have your application signed by a pastor or a leader in your church, something like that. And one of the requirements is that you regularly attend religious services.

So that would be a statement that many of you would not be able to make even if you could assent to a certain statement of belief, just simply the requirement of regularly being involved in religious congregation. That will be – that might be a problem and you would have to choose a different company that didn't have that requirement.

And those requirements continue. When I was submitting the need for the midwife bill for our baby, then I needed to have that signed off. All the medical bills on the need form need to be signed off by as far as – by a leader or a pastor or something like that within your local church.

I like that. I really like that. I like that area of accountability. I like that aspect of the Christian community. Some of you may not like that at all and so you'll need to research, for example, the needs process and you'd prefer something more individualistic. Depending on your theological beliefs, you may find it impossible to participate with some of these.

Let me read you the statements of beliefs that – two examples of the statements of beliefs to which you're required to assent. The most liberal and the most inclusive of these would be Liberty HealthShare. I've seen them advertising extensively on cable news and on various liberty-oriented conservative political groups and political affiliations.

Now, they still are a religiously-based organization but they're advertising in the context of liberty because many of the people who would come in in the liberty-oriented libertarian camps will come from a Christian perspective. Of course, not all libertarians are Christians and not all Christians are libertarians. There are far too many statist Christians in my opinion.

But these things are allied. These things are natural complements. The political system that you can pull out from the Bible will tend towards libertarianism. So here would be the statement of belief to which you would assent if you were applying for membership in Liberty HealthShare, reading from their application.

"I believe that my personal rights and liberties originate from God and are bestowed on me by God and are not concessions granted to me by governments or men. I believe every individual has a fundamental religious right to worship the God of the Bible in his or her own way.

I believe it is my biblical and ethical obligation to assist my fellow man when in need according to my available resources and opportunity. I believe it is my spiritual duty to God and my ethical duty to others to maintain a healthy lifestyle and avoid foods, behaviors, or habits that produce sickness or disease.

I believe it is my fundamental right of conscience to direct my own health care in consultation with physicians, family, or other valued advisors, free from government dictates, restraints, and oversight." That's basically the extent of it. You don't have to profess any particular brand of Christianity. It's not Trinitarian. It's not Unitarian.

It's not. It's just, it is what it is. Now contrast that with here with MediShare. Here's the statement of faith to which you would need to assent if you were to apply to be a part of MediShare. "All adult members 18 years of age or older must have a verifiable Christian testimony indicating a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and profess to the following statement of faith.

I believe there is only one God, eternally existing in three persons, the Father, Jesus Christ, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I believe Jesus is God in equal standing with the Father and the Holy Spirit. I believe the Bible is God's written revelation to man and is verbally inspired, authoritative, and without error.

I believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, who existed as God before anything was created, His virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, death on the cross to provide for our redemption, bodily resurrection, and ascension into heaven, present ministry of intercession for us, and His return to earth in power and glory.

He is the world's only Savior and is the Lord of all. I believe in the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit, that He performs the miracle of new birth in an unbeliever and indwells believers, enabling them to live a godly life. I believe man was created in the image of God, but because of sin, was alienated from God.

Alienation can be removed only by accepting God's gift of salvation, by grace, through faith, which was made possible by Christ's death and resurrection. This faith will be evidenced by works that we do. Now, if you are theologically literate, you will recognize each of those points of that confession of faith as being significant dividing points among various denominations and among various people.

But this particular form doesn't stop there. They actually go through, in order to ensure clarity, it goes beyond, asks what your denomination is, and then it goes on with these statements for a double attestation. It says this, "Medeshare is a community of like-minded individuals who share a common faith in Jesus Christ.

Please be aware that some denominations may not be in complete agreement with the statement of faith, so please reaffirm your agreement with each statement below. I believe Jesus is God in equal standing with the Father and the Holy Spirit." Agree or do not agree, you have to choose. "I believe that there is only one God, eternally existing in three persons, the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Again, that is a significant statement.

And then you go on and agree, do you agree with the following? And you have to individually agree or disagree with that statement. Do you agree with the following? "The Bible teaches that all sin has separated man from God. The Bible teaches that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Our sin is forgiven only through faith in Christ and His atonement for our sin. By believing in Christ and His atonement, we are forgiven from all our sin." And it goes on with a few more. So, the point of these is to demonstrate that depending on your personal theological convictions and beliefs, you may or may not be able to affirm the confession of faith that is held by these organizations.

Once again, I love this because I believe that any person should have the right of free association and any person who desires to integrate or associate with any other person should be able to do it on any basis whatsoever that they choose. This is not, however, a politically popular opinion.

This is not a politically popular stance in the current political climate. Will it be possible for an organization like that, again that was MediShare, will it be possible for an organization like that to be able to maintain its business dealings in the future with such an exclusionary religious document?

I don't know. I simply don't know. I hope so, but I don't know. And time will tell. So, proceed with caution. I would much rather do business with any of these organizations than with the large health insurance companies. But I also recognize that it's a risk and you need to be aware of that risk.

So, just be aware of it. I think I have a high degree of confidence in the ethics of the administrators who are coordinating these organizations and that when faced with difficulties, they would seek to – in the worst-case scenario, they would seek to wind up the – wind up their business affairs in the best way possible.

And these organizations are growing. And so I think in the future, there will be more and more and more people. Because frankly, in conclusion here, frankly, doing business, my experience with Samaritan Ministries, I have no personal experience with these other companies. I'm not aware of any significant complaints or problems with any of them.

In researching them, I found a few people that were unhappy, but I've not found – that's to be expected. You get one-star reviews on everything. When you're shopping on Amazon, what I like to see is a high percentage of five-star reviews and some number of one- and two-star reviews.

I get very nervous if I don't find one- and two-star reviews on something because nothing is perfect. So, I'm not aware of any problems with any of these, but I have no personal experience with any of them except Samaritan Ministries. And there, I have no affiliation with them other than I am simply a member.

And in a moment, I'll tell you why I chose them. But I think all of these organizations are growing and I hope and I think there will be more and more in the future. I think there will be more from diverse ideological standpoints. I think there will be more and more from various methods.

Now, a couple of important points that I don't want to forget. One, if you are going to qualify for the Affordable Care Act exemption, that exemption, the exemption from the Obamacare tax penalty, that exemption is only available for those organizations who have received a certificate of approval from the US government.

Not all health-sharing organizations will exempt you from the Obamacare tax penalty. Now, all five of these do and I think there will be more in the future who probably do. But don't assume that just because there is an organization that it will automatically qualify for exemption. I researched each of these five and each of these five does qualify for that exemption.

But you can't assume that to be the case. I don't know how onerous the regulations are for new organizations that seek to be established. For example, I would love to see a couple of Catholic options. I would love to see a couple of Mormon options of organizations that are approved for this exemption.

I would love to see a Muslim option. I would love to see an atheist option. The humanists come together and form their organization. That would be great. I would love to see that. But I don't know what the legislative possibility of these things are and of course given the uncertainty regarding the Affordable Care Act, I don't think anybody is trying to start something new right now until they wait and see what President-elect Trump will do.

So time will tell. Now, as I close the show, I will tell you why I chose Samaritan Ministries for me. I would have had no problem participating in these – in most of these organizations as far as affirming their statements of faith, etc. I would have had no problem.

The costs, depending on your choice, the costs, many of them are similar. At the end of the day, I was down to choosing between MediShare and Samaritan Ministries. I looked at some of the others but those were kind of my final two based upon the peculiarities of my situation.

But I chose Samaritan Ministries and there are a few things that I really like about them. Number one, I really like the direct sharing of cost. I really like that. I think that's fantastic. Not that the others are – not that there's a problem with the others as far as having a central escrow agent, an administrator who just simply coordinates the funds and establishes the escrow account and sends out one check.

I think that's probably pretty efficient. But I like the sending the check. I like putting – I enjoy writing out that paper check and sending it to this family who had an experience with temporary amnesia this month. Sending it to a family who just had a baby and a note of congratulations or in my family, we pray.

Every month, Samaritan Ministries sends out a prayer list and you can pray for the needs of that day. So we seek to pray for the people who are there, who are having needs and I really appreciate that. I like to be able to put a note of encouragement in there, send a picture of my family.

It very much – to me, those things are major advantages because it's keeping that sense of community, which is a fundamental function of how the church should operate. In general, the Christian church is always going to be expressed on a local basis. You're not going – yes, there is a universal church.

But I don't get involved in an in-depth way with people who are living in another place. It can't be because everything breaks if it's not in a location. So Christians should be coming together with people who are in their specific area and that's where the needs are based upon, localized working, localized community first.

When you read the New Testament, the church is not a business organization first and foremost with a broad reach of an international reach. The church is a local community of believers and disciples of Jesus Christ. So everything must be expressed on a local basis. So I like that Samaritan Ministries allows me to satisfy the legal obligation to maintain health coverage while still having and maintaining some of that local flair, that personal involvement.

The second reason I chose Samaritan Ministries is I like how they structured their costs. It was very, very simple. It wasn't multiple programs. It felt less like insurance and it just felt more like what I was looking for. Now, none of the costs with these programs are guaranteed in terms of you can shop based upon the price.

But the cost of these programs is going to change. Since I've joined Samaritan Ministries, they've increased the monthly share cost. And I was extremely impressed with the process of how they did that. They have a system which is a very simple system where if more expenses come in for three consecutive months than do shares come in, what they do is they have a system where they prorate the expenses in order to make the budget balance.

They prorate the expenses because they don't – remember, Samaritan Ministries has no money. They don't have any money that they're sending out. And so what they have to do is they just have to simply share less of the needs and prorate them. So back again to that place of individual responsibility.

But if that happens for three months in a row, then they request an increase and they vote on an increase. Well, I voted for an increase and all the members voted for an increase. But then they came in and they had fewer shares than needed and so they've been discounting it since then.

And so the organization is reactive, quite reactive to the current existing medical costs. So as costs of healthcare rise, as costs rise, that's reflected in the premiums and I've been extremely impressed with my experience thus far as a member. Really, really have been impressed with how they handled that.

It feels like you're all in it together and I like the simplicity of the model. I've been very impressed with simplicity of the model with regard to even how my own recent claim for the birth of our third baby has been handled. There is in the agreement with Samaritan Ministries a need for each family to – you always share – you always take care of the first amount of the bill.

It's not a deductible because it's not health insurance, but the first part of the bill is not published. I think it's 500 bucks, something like that. So in some ways, it's similar to how a deductible would work with health insurance, but it's not health insurance. So it's not a deductible.

They just don't publish that amount of the need. But when it comes to – I was pleasantly surprised to find that since my wife and I are enlisting the services of a midwife and planning to have a home birth with our child, that was discounted and they – it worked out financially better where the entire need was published and I didn't even have to absorb that.

I like that because if you're not a parent or you haven't researched this as extensively as my wife and I have, perhaps this won't make a difference. But when you research those of us who pursue natural birth options and doing things like home births, working with a midwife instead of going down to the hospital, one of the things that you find is you find that there is a substantially much, much lower incidence of c-sections.

C-sections are very expensive. It's basically going to be a $30,000 hospital bill if you deliver via cesarean. Well, those of us who pursue other options have a substantially lower percentage of c-section use or need for c-section than do people who are giving birth in a hospital. Now, part of that is due to the sample set that if you are not a low-risk pregnancy, you're not legally allowed or permitted to give birth at home.

You're not legally permitted to work with a midwife. The midwife can't have you on as a patient. So, you have a sample set bias in favor of fewer c-sections simply due to who is choosing to give birth at home. A lot of it however is simply due to the philosophy and education and experience of those of us who choose to go this weird crunchy route as I call it.

So, in general, you'll find I think a higher degree of education, a higher degree of education both in general and in childbirth. It seems my observation has been a higher degree of experience and of research and preparation, et cetera, just a very different world. So, to me, when the company is – they don't choose.

I think that would be a problem if they were choosing that and I didn't know that until I called up. They don't say what you do need to do or don't have to do. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a subtle encouragement there and it was great.

It was just so nice when I called even just to make the claim. It was so nice to just have somebody just be rejoicing with us and say, "Congratulations. That's so awesome that you're having a baby," and to feel like even the administrative assistant that I was speaking to on the phone was an appropriate – was somebody with whom I have much in common.

It really was a much better experience than when I called Humana the first time around and went through the Humana claims process for our first child. But that brings me to the third reason. This was the clincher for me. One of the things that is common to all five of these – with all five of these companies is they have a universal prohibition against the use of tobacco.

Now, this one is annoying to me because I believe there are differences in the people who use tobacco and who use tobacco products. There is a significant difference in both from practicality, the type of person, and also as well as the health of the person and their desire for making healthier decisions.

There's a big difference between somebody who is a pack-a-day smoker versus somebody who smokes a pipe once a month. There's a big difference there. There's a big difference between somebody who is a – who is vaping every day versus somebody who smokes a cigar when they go play golf a couple times a year.

And one of my annoyances with all of these companies is that they make no distinction there. And so when I looked at that, I don't smoke cigarettes. I do and have in the past enjoyed having an occasional cigar or having an occasional pipe with my friends. When I was shopping for insurance, I had not had a cigar or consumed any tobacco product in a couple of years.

But I always like to have that as an option in case I'm in a situation where I like to do that. And I was a bit bummed about affirming that – by the way, some of them also if you haven't – some of them have different requirements as far as when – if you've ever used any tobacco product of any kind, then – if you've ever used any tobacco product that you can choose between, you need to choose one in the timeframe for which you've used it.

So when I was looking at these, I was a little bit bummed to assent and to confirm, "OK. Well, as long as I'm a member of this ministry, then I'm not going to use any tobacco product because I want to have the option in the future if I want to have a pipe with a friend or a cigar with my buddies, then I have the option in the future." And so the clincher for me was that when I read carefully all the guidelines for the companies in the Samaritan Ministries guidelines, they say, "No tobacco with the exception of an occasional celebratory cigar, for example, at the birth of a child." And that tiny little exception written in the guidelines for me was the clincher because then I could wholeheartedly assent and affirm that I would participate in this.

I'm not a tobacco user. I'm not a habitual smoker. But at least I have the option for an occasional celebratory cigar or pipe and it's clearly stated in the guidelines. To me, that was the clincher because it freed my conscience to be able to affirm without reservation that, "No, I don't use tobacco," but it allowed the option without feeling like I had to leave the organization or cancel my membership before.

If I were going to have a celebratory cigar in the future, it left that option open for me. And that was the clincher. I wish more companies would make a distinction between types of tobacco. Now, of course, this is difficult. When I was in life insurance, the life insurance companies would do it differently.

But for example, Northwestern Mutual with whom all of my life insurance policies are with, they have an option for what they would call occasional tobacco, which was no cigarettes because cigarette smokers tend to be more habitual. I had one friend. I've only met one person, one person who would have one cigarette.

She would have one cigarette every single night as part of her bedtime routine. But in general, it seems that cigarette smokers are more habitual and much more frequent. But somebody who goes out and smokes a cigar when they play golf once a quarter, that's very different. I think it's very different from a medical consideration of the increased risk of tobacco.

And so I wish more companies would bring a little bit of texture to their question regarding tobacco. But for me, that was the clincher with regard to Samaritan Ministries. It may not be a factor for you, but I was quite excited to find that in the guidelines. It was the only one in which I found that and it removed any reservation because I was a little bit bummed.

You mean I never – as long as I'm a member of this, I can never choose to have a cigar? It wouldn't be so fun. If you are researching these, I'll link to these five companies. I intend to produce more guidance in the future as I can. So look on the website for that.

We'll see if I can get that done. And then also if you choose to join Samaritan Ministries or any of these, do me a favor. Tell them where you heard about the information. Tell them who referred you. Samaritan Ministries as an example has a referral program that is open to any member.

They don't pay me for advertising. They don't – I checked. They don't have any kind of affiliate program or anything I can join. I can't earn commissions. But if any of you are researching this and you choose to do that, just tell them where you heard about it, heard about the show – or excuse me, tell them that you heard about it from Joshua Sheets, S-H-E-A-T-S, Joshua Sheets.

Tell them where you heard about it. And then what they'll do is they will discount my next membership. That will be very helpful to me. It will help to reduce my bills if many of you do that. So in some ways, it's similar to a commission. It just gives me a discount for that referral.

Please do the same thing if you join any of the other organizations. I have no formal business relationship at this point in time. But I would like to get some of them to advertise with me. I approached a couple of them. Thus far, they haven't chosen to come on board as advertisers.

But I would like them to do that. So please just tell them where you heard about the show if you research it and choose to find some of them, to choose a different one. I forgot to say administrative costs. One of the greatest things about how some of these companies handle their administrative costs is it's separate.

So for Samaritan Ministries, this also was attractive to me. That once per year, you send your -- I send my membership shares. Instead of sending it to another person, I send it directly to the company. And that's what they use to cover their office expenses, the salaries for the administrative staff, the board of directors, et cetera.

So I thought that was a very fair way. Eleven months out of the year, I send my check to an individual. One month of the year, I send it to the home office. So tell them my name and I will get a small commission or -- excuse me, not a commission.

I'll get a small discount on my bill and I would greatly appreciate that. I hope this has been useful to you. I probably shouldn't have divided it out into two shows, but I needed to get it out. So I hope that this information is useful to you. Check out these healthcare sharing ministries.

I think they're great options. I'm excited about the future and I hope that you are too. A couple of calls to action here at the end, some things I'd like you to do. First of all, thank you to the several few hundred of you who joined our Facebook group since I've opened it up.

The Facebook group for Radical Personal Finance is now an open community group. So if you would like to talk about questions like this, interact with other like-minded members, please come over and join our Facebook group. As of right now, it's up to 402 members. Just search "Facebook for Radical Personal Finance" and you'll find that.

Number two, thank you to those of you who have been leaving iTunes reviews. When I recorded the last show, we were at 337 and we're now up to 368 reviews on iTunes. I'm pushing hard to get to 1,000 reviews and so I'm going to be encouraging many of you as quickly as possible to leave a review.

About 10,000 of you listen to my show every day on an iPhone, on an iPhone device in the Apple Podcasts app. And then another, I don't know, 1,000, 2,000 of you use the iTunes desktop client. If you have an iPhone, please do me a favor after this show, just go right into that Apple Podcasts app that you use every day, search for my show in the store and then just click "Leave a Rating and Review." One or two sentences is perfect.

It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be involved. Just one or two sentences would be great and share an honest opinion of what you think about the show. At the moment, you get the benefit of those all show up on the website. I'm going to take that feature down pretty soon, but all the good ones show up and all the angry ones show up.

And I encourage freedom of speech. Just do me a favor, please, and do that. One or two sentences should take you about two or three minutes. But we're at 368. I want to get up to 1,000. Finally, in conclusion, if this information has been helpful, please consider becoming a patron of the show, RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.

That's the direct listener-supported way that allows me to minimize the advertising on the show and minimize the corporate conflicts of interest. RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron. Or if you would like to speak to me about your specific situation, engage in some kind of telephone consultation, I offer that service to you. You can find out those details at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/phonecall.

RadicalPersonalFinance.com/phonecall. call.