The Peoria Journal Star’s Jenni Davis profiled Samaritan Ministries in the Sunday, June 28, issue. She quotes Samaritan VP James Lansberry extensively as well as member Jason Morris and shares a great deal of info about us. SMI members also defend the ministry against negative statements made in the comments section by site users.
Read the article here.
MSNBC.com reporter JoNel Aleccia published a piece on health care sharing ministries today, with a heavy emphasis on Samaritan Ministries International. JoNel’s story focused on members Mike and Mary Suitter of Hayden, Idaho.
HAYDEN, Idaho – Mary Suitter is sporting fresh bandages on her face and arm, markers of two new biopsies that may reveal yet another bout with melanoma.
Though she lacks conventional health insurance, the 57-year-old mother of four says she isn’t worried about the costs of a recurrence of her 2006 diagnosis with the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Suitter — and her husband, Mike, a handyman and builder — are members of a health care sharing ministry, a religious co-op whose participants agree to support each other — and to pay each others’ medical bills.
Also quoted were Tracy Kamprath of Texas
Tracy Kamprath, 49, of Chappel Hill, Texas, admits she had doubts about the program when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor two years ago.
“We weren’t sure, but we joined in faith,” said Kamprath, a former Christian school teacher whose family had no other option for health insurance when they signed up two years before she became ill.
The bill for her successful treatment topped $240,000, but with discounts for paying cash and some negotiations with providers, the Kampraths were able to reduce it to $60,000, which was covered by dozens of Samaritan members.
“Every penny was paid for,” she said.
and Samaritan VP James Lansberry:
The federal exemption to mandatory insurance may fuel even more interest in the health care sharing ministries. Samaritan is already enrolling 200 new members a month, Lansberry says, numbers that may grow as the 2014 deadline for mandatory insurance looms.
There’s also a poll about the value of health care sharing ministries and, on the poll page, a place for comments. Please weigh in with your opinion and add some comments if you see the need.
Thanks to the Suitters and Tracy Kamprath for agreeing to be interviewed and for representing Samaritan members.
Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute speculates whether health reform advocates are going through stages of grief over the state of their effort.
Following is a press release issued by Samaritan Ministries on Feb. 4.
James Lansberry of Samaritan Ministries International on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010, applauded the efforts in more than three dozen states to guarantee freedom of choice in health care for their residents.
Health care reform legislation at the federal level includes an individual mandate that would require all U.S. citizens to buy health insurance or face fines.
The Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, which would release residents of a state from such a mandate, has already been filed or prefiled in 30 states. A question on whether to guarantee freedom of choice will be on Arizona’s ballot this fall, and lawmakers in five more states have announced their intentions to file the legislation. A citizen-led initiative has also been announced in Colorado.
Virginia’s state Senate has passed the legislation and its House is expected to take up the matter today.
“It’s encouraging to see state legislatures pushing back against a one-size-fits-all approach to health reform,” said Lansberry, who is vice president of SMI and president of the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries. “When a patient is freed up to choose providers, to choose the design of his own health care methods, at that point there is better health care and better cost.
“We applaud the legislators standing up for freedom rather than a centrally controlled choice.”
The states in which the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Commission, has been introduced to release residents from an individual mandate are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
States in which legislators are considering introducing the act are Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Utah.
Samaritan Ministries is a health care needs-sharing organization founded in 1994. It includes than 14,100 member households in all 50 states. For more information about SMI or to contact James Lansberry, call 1-888-726-4276, send e-mail to jlansberry@smchcn.net or info@healthcaresharing.org, or view www.samaritanministries.org.
You can follow Samaritan on Twitter at samaritanmin. On Facebook, search for Samaritan Ministries.
Information about the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries can be found at www.healthcaresharing.org.
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For interviews, contact Mike Miller at (877)764-2426, Ext. 142, mikemiller@smchcn.net; or Jeff Whittemore at (888) 726-4276, jwhittemore@smchcn.net.
Samaritan vice president James Lansberry will be on the radio several times in upcoming days talking about states’ efforts to make an individual health insurance mandate illegal for their residents.
