Rising health care costs expose blessings of Samaritan membership

Even if you’re at the highest Samaritan Ministries membership rate for health care sharing, $320/month, and even if you send out the highest Save to Share annual set-aside, $399, over the course of the year and pay its annual fee of $15, and pay the annual SMI membership fee of $175, a total of $4,429, you’re still responsible for less than half of the average annual cost of health insurance per employee predicted for 2012, according to consulting and outsourcing firm Aon Hewitt.

The predicted annual cost per employee enrolled in an HMO plan is $11,151. This figure drops slightly for those who choose the POS option ($11,059) and the lowest cost option is the PPO plan at $10,038 annually. All of this adds up to a national average healthcare cost per employee of $10,475. In 2011, the figure was $9,792; back in 2005, the average annual cost was only $6,677.

Granted, as an employee with health insurance through your employer, you wouldn’t directly pay the cost of your health insurance. But it makes itself known in the form of a lower salary, since the employer still has to pay for the insurance. Plus, Aon Hewitt reports,

employers continue to ask employees to absorb increases through a combination of out-of-pocket cost and increased payroll contributions.

Simply put, Samaritan Ministries offers a less expensive way to take care of health care costs. But that’s only the financial side. It also offers Christians a way to make sure their health care dollars are not going toward such procedures as abortion or euthanasia or to support an unbiblical lifestyle. And it offers a way to be a blessing to brothers and sisters in Christ. Read this point made by a member:

No, it is not insurance. And I’m thankful for that fact! I’m thankful that each month I can interact in another Christian’s life on this level. I can be praying for them, writing to them, and teaching my children to be a blessing to others! You can’t do that with regular insurance.