{"id":17244,"date":"2015-11-11T09:07:37","date_gmt":"2015-11-11T17:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/alaskans-opt-out-of-insurance-choose-health-care-ministries\/"},"modified":"2015-11-11T09:07:37","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T17:07:37","slug":"alaskans-opt-out-of-insurance-choose-health-care-ministries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaskans-opt-out-of-insurance-choose-health-care-ministries\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaskans opt out of insurance, choose health care ministries"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE \u2014<\/strong> Some Alaska residents are turning to religious organizations as an alternative to health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n

Christian Health Care Sharing Ministries allows members to pay a monthly fee to have their medical expenses over a certain amount be reimbursed. These kinds of religiously affiliated organizations are legal under the Affordable Care Act, The Alaska Public Radio Network reported.<\/p>\n

Lane Chesley, of Homer, said he and his wife chose to contribute monthly to a Mennonite-affiliated organization based in Ohio after they were faced with an insurance rate from Moda Health totaling more than $2,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were put in a position where we really have no choice but to opt out of the traditional insurance because we just simply can\u2019t afford the premiums in the individual market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Chesley said he and his wife became members of Liberty HealthShare Nov. 1. Their $300 monthly contribution provides them access to shared funds from the health ministry for medical expenses over $1,000 per incident.<\/p>\n

Chesley has been impressed with the service so far and has suggested that his friends in Homer try the alternative to health insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all started Googling \u2018health share ministries\u2019 to see if we could find articles or information about how these health share ministries have failed their members and we couldn\u2019t find any,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While health care ministries may be the best alternative for some residents, they do come with a bit of risk. The organizations do not provide insurance and are not required to have cash reserves to ensure they stay solvent.<\/p>\n

For Chesley and his wife, the alternative to health insurance is a way to save money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe math just seemed to stack up to say it\u2019s worth a try, regardless of whether I get anything reimbursed or not. Because I have a legal mechanism now where I don\u2019t have to pay $36,000 for health insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE \u2014 Some Alaska residents are turning to religious organizations as an alternative to health<\/a> coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Christian Health Care Sharing Ministries allows members to pay a monthly fee to have their medical expenses over a certain amount be reimbursed. These kinds of religiously affiliated organizations are legal under the Affordable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17244"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}