ACA will have little impact on Samaritan members

The Affordable Care Act will cause members of Samaritan Ministries International a trifle extra paperwork at tax time, but will not affect them as members beyond that, says executive vice president James Lansberry.

Membership in a health care sharing ministry like Samaritan satisfies the individual mandate portion of the ACA. Members will only have to fill out a downloadable IRS form affirming they were members all 12 months of the tax year they’re filing for. They won’t even have to do that until 2015 when filing their 2014 tax returns.

“So there will be no tax penalty,” James says. “You’ll still be a member, and health care sharing will work just like it does now.”

Samaritan will notify members when that form is available.

“As we learn things, we’re going to put them on our website. Watch our blog, watch our website,” James says.

There should be plenty of health care providers who continue to accept cash, James says, since the number of uninsured people, and, thus, cash payers, is actually likely to rise as the ACA is more fully implemented.

He also predicts that the cost of preventive care such as mammograms or colonoscopies will go up since all plans under the ACA have to cover those procedures 100 percent.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to find ways for our members to locate providers like the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and other cash providers who will be a little more immune to that, since they’re not taking insurance,” James says. “We’re also going to try to work with doctors we know, in order to look for some of that good pricing, adjusting our guidelines to make those things work for our members, especially in the case of retainer or concierge practices.”