Many of the healthcare reform bills under consideration include an individual mandate. If you don’t purchase health insurance you pay a fee. For the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Health Committee, this penalty would be up to $750. The House Version would assess the fee as 2.5 percent of adjusted gross income over a certain level ($18,700 for a couple). However, in all cases, individuals with religious objections would be exempt from these penalties from not purchasing insurance.
Will Obama’s healthcare reform efforts produce a religious revival? It’s doubtful, but the number of people who claim to have religious objections to avoid compliance with the individual mandate will rise.
The exemption from the excise tax is for members of non-insurance ministries called health care sharing ministries. You can find out more about them here:
http://www.healthcaresharing.org.
These are non-insurance charities that have over 100,000 members who are paying their own health care bills by sharing with one another. This innovative, affordable, faith-based approach is well loved by its members and we’re grateful that the Senate Finance committee included language so these 100,000+ folks have their religious liberty protected.
James Lansberry
President
Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries