‘By contrast, Health Care Sharing Ministries offer savings, flexibility, lower costs and being part of a Christian, caring community of members who look out for each other,’ says Katy Talento

 WASHINGTON — Across all major indices, health care is trending in the wrong direction, according to a new Heritage Foundation report, “Key Health Care Trends: Nationally and in Each of the States.”

Premiums are up, choices are down, and access to providers is restricted, the report says.

“For many Americans, Obamacare has been a disaster, raising costs and reducing choices,” says Katy Talento, executive director of the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries (The Alliance, ahcsm.org).

 “By contrast, Health Care Sharing Ministries offer savings, flexibility, lower costs and being part of a Christian, caring community of members who look out for each other.”

Today, the health care debate is focused on affordability and access, according to the Heritage Report, which warns that without change, current trends indicate that conditions will worsen for consumers.

The key elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — also known as Obamacare — took effect in 2014, thus making 2024 the law’s 10th year of operation.

Before Obamacare, the individual health insurance market consisted mainly of workers (and their families) without access to employer-sponsored coverage, often because they were self-employed. The ACA focused on insuring low-income, uninsured individuals. Millions of non-elderly, able-bodied adults without dependent children were added to the Medicaid program. In addition, Obamacare facilitated heavily subsidized individual market coverage to several million more individuals with incomes just above Medicaid eligibility.

“As a result, more Americans became dependent on government-run health care, while for those who had private individual health insurance before Obamacare, premiums spiked and coverage options shrank,” the report said. Additionally, the “passage of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act continues the negative trends that have flowed from Obamacare. Billed as an effort to reduce the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare enrollees, the provisions of this act—most notably the introduction of a mechanism for setting government price controls on widely prescribed drugs—have led to higher premiums and fewer choices for seniors.”

Obamacare has:

  • Increased the cost of individual market health insurance coverage by 133 percent between 2013 — the last year before the implementation of Obamacare — and 2022.
  • Hit the middle-income self-employed particularly hard with rising deductibles.
  • Limited enrollees’ access to providers, either by reducing the number of “in-network” providers, providing no reimbursement for “non-network” providers, or requiring “pre-approval” for more covered services.
  • Resulted in less insurer choice and competition. In 2013, there were 395 insurers offering coverage in the individual market at the state level. By 2018 there were only 181 insurers offering coverage on the Obamacare exchanges, and there were eight states in which only one insurer offered exchange coverage.
  • Created greater dependence on government programs. Obamacare also significantly expanded government-run coverage through Medicaid.
  • Caused higher premiums for Medicare drug plans and fewer choices.

Across all major health care measures, health care is trending in the wrong direction. Premiums are up, choices are down, and access to providers is restricted.

“Health Care Sharing Ministries are more important than ever in this time of inflation and rising health care costs,” Talento says. “These ministries have worked hard for decades to educate and raise awareness about their unique solution for high health care costs.

 “Hard-pressed families and individuals are getting help in meeting their medical expenses through the other members of their Health Care Sharing Ministry community.”

 Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries is a 501(c)(6) trade organization representing the common interests of Health Care Sharing Ministries which are facilitating the sharing of health care needs (financial, emotional, and spiritual) by individuals and families, and their participants. The Alliance engages with federal and state regulators, members of the media, and the Christian community to provide accurate and timely information on health care sharing.

To learn more about the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, visit www.ahcsm.org or follow the ministry on Facebook or X.

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To interview a representative from the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, contact Media@HamiltonStrategies.com, Beth Bogucki, 610.584.1096, ext. 105, Dawn Foglein, ext. 100, or Richard Jefferson, rjefferson@hamiltonstrategies.com.

 

 

 

###  To interview a representative from The Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, contact Media@HamiltonStrategies.com, Beth Bogucki, 610.584.1096, ext. 105.