NYT on Scamaritan

[hoipolloi]

Scamaritan and similar outfits really torque me off because of the basic dishonesty that permeates the entire shebang -- participants, "coverage" requirements, and the executives who run them.

There is a LOT wrong with healthcare in the US, even with ACA which made some things better, but Scamaritan's bogus coverage and policies telling their customers to follow up on expensive care or treatments they've received by stiffing hospitals & medical professionals is just wrong. 

Will wind up the mini-rant by linking again to the Tait & Lauren Zimmerman gofundme  which was set up to pay off their oldest son's premature delivery costs which were originally higher but had been bargained down using Scamaritan's "negotiation" techniques. When you're a righteous "Christian" like Tait Zimmerman, you can refuse to pay your bills or beg for money from others -- it's all good.

[Cleopatra7]

1 hour ago, bea said:

 

In a blog entry of someone who was using Samaritan and had a child in the Pediatric ICU, they had taken advantage of the fact that they were technically uninsured. The child's medical bills were covered by the state.

That is one of the many things that drives me crazy about this. They are gaming the system - claiming to be uninsured, because this isn't, technically, health insurance, and receiving lowered bills as a result. Then, because they belong to this ministry, they have help in paying off the bills. Where does that extra money end up, the money that was taken off their bill because they aren't insured? On the bills of people who pay for regular health insurance.

They oppose health insurance, unless it's free, apparently. I have not heard any complaints from fundies with children who have had long stays in the NICU about the evil government swooping in to....... pay the hospital bills so that they don't go bankrupt, and so is their child receives care and doesn't die. The government needs to stay out of healthcare, unless it is paying for them to have more children.

I would like to see scams like this become illegal. They aren't benefitting anyone but the people running it.

The most recent NYT article on health sharing "ministries" had the usual comments claiming that opposition to such things is simply knee-jerk anti-religious sentiment, but the way these things are run are a scam, and would be a scam regardless of whether they were religious or secular. It's sort of like those beefed up CPCs that say they're going to offer full gynecological services to compete with PP, but don't offer birth control or take low income patients. Only a very tiny group of people are going to qualify for such programs (i.e., conservative white Protestants), let alone even see them as viable alternatives to what they're supposed to be replacing.

[Terrie]

"Our convictions are important enough to allow other peoples' children to die, but not important enough to allow our children to die."

 

[Jingerbread]

On 3/10/2016 at 7:51 AM, klynn said:

This seems to be just setting yourself up for disaster.  What would happen if you get into a horrific car accident, or had cancer, or any number of things?  $250,000 likely isn't going to cut it.  I have a friend who was nearly killed in a head on collision two summers ago.  She is still having surgeries to reconstruct her leg, and I know the total is well over a million. 

It seems very irresponsible to me to forgo traditional health insurance for Scamaritan or the likes. 

I was thinking about a friend of mine and her husband who were in a crash that almost killed them last year.  The bills were over a mill before the were out of the hospital.  What would have happened if they were using Scamaritan, and couldn't pay premiums for a while because of disability?  No help at all for them?

I hate to be all "mah taxdollars," but I hope my tax dollars aren't going to subsidize the medical care of adults who use Scamaritan and find themselves not covered, especially when Scamaritan costs more than a lot of legitimate insurance plans.

[AnywhereButHere]

So,  Scamaritan and essential oil MLMs are acceptable ways to game the system. Those are fine, but food stamps, welfare, and actual health insurance are bad. Gotcha. Nice Christian values going on there.

[countressrascal]

My issue with Scamaritan and other religious medical sharing program is that they give a false hope to people who buy into them. Since I work for a Community Health Clinic, that offers low cost medical care to underinsured/uninsured individuals until 2 yrs ago we could reduce bills to below medicare/medicaid rates however now since AZ expanded their medicaid program we no longer can they must charge those rates or lose our federal funds. We have at least three or four patients every month that are part of these programs they are shocked that we require payment up front for non emergency visits those are the rules we have to follow. About a month ago I had a women who showed up with a 3 month old that was having seizures and was not crying, that was an emergency so we did an office visit without payment-found out that the child was deaf within the first 2 min in the room, then I talked to the mom about the seizures she explained every thing by this time my student went and got the social worker to work with the mom to get care for the child. After the discussion with the social worker, she still refused to accept  state help to diagnose the child because she was told if she accepted the help they would force her to accept birth control. Good ending to story the grandmother got involved and they finally enrolled in the program but it took a lot of time. They still have not paid for the first visit, they believe that the medical profession should not earn a fair wage for our work.

[Terrie]

She objected because the program offered birth control, or they were, what, going to hold her and force the Pill down her throat?

[warriorblade8857]

On December 29, 2014 at 9:05 AM, chaotic life said:

So they have safety nets that underwrite emergency health care and childhood health care, and if they actually get sick they can shop on the marketplace for real insurance. Basically, they use religion to demand society underwrite their unforeseen emergencies while thumbing their noses at the very safety nets they utilize if the unforeseen happens to them.

Precisely. Scamaritan is the perfect symbol of fundie hypocrisy:

Lecture everybody else on "personal responsibility", then turn around and refuse to take responsibility for unforeseen emergencies. Because, obviously if Scamaritan doesn't cover it, and they somehow can't take advantage of other safety nets, there'll be a sob story and a fundraiser+donation from their congregation.

Yet, somehow they'll continue to look down their noses at 1) people "who won't take personal responsibility" and 2) people who "take responsibility" by shelling out for health insurance.

The double-think with these people is always baffling. 

[warriorblade8857]

14 hours ago, AnywhereButHere said:

So,  Scamaritan and essential oil MLMs are acceptable ways to game the system. Those are fine, but food stamps, welfare, and actual health insurance are bad. Gotcha. Nice Christian values going on there.

Ugh, agree. It's the "us vs. them" mentality. Scamaritan is fine because it's a limited group of people with similar belief systems, who are all "godly" in the "right" way. For people that supposedly believe in the love of Christ, they sure have pretty small hearts.

[Emme]

I always get excited when Scamaritan makes the news again because it's one of the things in the fundie world that just baffles and enrages me. 

[socalrules]

What is interesting to me, and what was briefly mentioned in the article, is that many of these families would be paying less for real insurance,  especially those where their state offers subsidies. We know that many, if not most, of these fundies are low income with eleventy kids. It's ridiculous to not pay less for real insurance and save that money to put food in your kids stomachs. What truly concerns me is that they lose out on preventative care and that many of the people with scam insurance are likely using unsuccessful home remedies to avoid going to the doctor for something not covered by scam. I am worried that something like appendicitis is going to be treated as just a stomach ache and someone will die.

[Terrie]

No wonder ZsuZsu loves it. It fits right with her mentality. "Doctors have their place. That place is when failure to seek preventive care and early intervention have turned something small into an emergency."

[Jingerbread]

15 hours ago, socalrules said:

What is interesting to me, and what was briefly mentioned in the article, is that many of these families would be paying less for real insurance,  especially those where their state offers subsidies. We know that many, if not most, of these fundies are low income with eleventy kids. It's ridiculous to not pay less for real insurance and save that money to put food in your kids stomachs. What truly concerns me is that they lose out on preventative care and that many of the people with scam insurance are likely using unsuccessful home remedies to avoid going to the doctor for something not covered by scam. I am worried that something like appendicitis is going to be treated as just a stomach ache and someone will die.

You know what gets to me?  How a lot of them could probably get free medical coverage through Medicaid, but they won't take it because Medicaid might cover birth control.  So they'll spite themselves and pay into Scamaritan and I don't know.  It's not like them skipping Medicaid means they aren't paying for birth control.  It's just a lot of stupidity.

[feministxtian]

Right now we have medicaid...which is wonderful for us. My husband's prescriptions run about 6 grand a month but since we're "poor" and he's disabled we are able to get his prescriptions filled for no out of pocket cost at all. I mean, it sucks to have to whip out that medicaid card, for me, it's kind of embarrassing, but if the choice is my discomfort or my husband's life, I'll take his life any day. We've also had an ACA policy that was pretty good and cheap. I think we paid 150 a month for decent coverage. 

I don't get the insurance-birth control connection. I had a discussion with one fundie who was bragging on his "excellent" employer coverage and how he was glad he didn't need the ACA, because "those policies pay for abortions". I told him to check his policy. They're all fucked in the head. 

[JMarie]

On ‎3‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 7:46 AM, Cleopatra7 said:

This article probably doesn't have much new information for us, but it's good that more people are being informed about this kind of faux-insurance:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/christians-flock-to-groups-that-help-members-pay-medical-bills.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_nn_20160311&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=57825966&_r=0

As one would expect, these "ministries" are being ripped apart in the comments section, because the costs of members who get cancer, have c-sections, and pre-existing conditions (not to mention preemies) will be pushed onto the tax payer.

One of the commenters said something about the typical age of a Scamaritan member.  And it does make sense.  The typical age is probably under 40, because the older someone is, the more likely they are to have some kind of medical concern.  Scamaritan won't cover those pre-existing conditions, eliminating probably 99% of people old enough to qualify for Medicare.  So it's basically a gigantic group of relatively healthy people (who may or may not be seeking out the non-covered preventative care).

[roddma]

15 hours ago, Jingerbread said:

You know what gets to me?  How a lot of them could probably get free medical coverage through Medicaid, but they won't take it because Medicaid might cover birth control.  So they'll spite themselves and pay into Scamaritan and I don't know.  It's not like them skipping Medicaid means they aren't paying for birth control.  It's just a lot of stupidity.

This is why health care in the U.S. got screwed up in the first place. Didn't Gil Bates mention how they negotiated the hospital cost? The hospital has to eat the rest of the cost or pass it to someone else.But they don't think this way. Just have eleventy kids because 'God' says to. Of course GOP and Fundies lay no blame on themselves.

[bea]

My brother-in-law, a classic embittered white guy who is unemployed because he's mad nobody handed him a job, refused to have health insurance for years. His position was that if it was an emergency, he could go and get treatment at the emergency room. Now, this guy also believes the government should stay out of everybody's lives. However, he sees no problem in bankrupting the hospital by getting treatment he can't pay for.

I do not understand this mindset. I have chronic health conditions and I have to have medical insurance. I also have two little girls with type 1 diabetes. Even with insurance, we pay thousands of dollars to keep them alive. Despite the fact that type 1 diabetics need insulin to stay alive, it is not free. Nor are parents of diabetics or adult diabetics given any sort of state aid. People die because they can't afford insulin. And the pharmaceutical companies fiddle with the chemical makeup of insulin every few years to prevent it from going generic. In fact, they keep hiking the price of insulin up. So much so that the New York Times has done several articles on the topic.

Anyway, it doesn't matter if you are a type 1 diabetic and you need insulin to stay alive. You cannot go up to the pharmacy and say " give me insulin, I have to have it or I'll die." They won't give it to you. And if a child is diagnosed with type 1 and their parents were foolish enough to join Samaritan, well, they are out of luck. Samaritan doesn't pay for insulin. Or for continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, glucometers - all of the many, many things it takes to keep a type 1 diabetic alive and healthy.

[feministxtian]

11 minutes ago, bea said:

I do not understand this mindset. I have chronic health conditions and I have to have medical insurance. I also have two little girls with type 1 diabetes. Even with insurance, we pay thousands of dollars to keep them alive. Despite the fact that type 1 diabetics need insulin to stay alive, it is not free. Nor are parents of diabetics or adult diabetics given any sort of state aid. People die because they can't afford insulin. And the pharmaceutical companies fiddle with the chemical makeup of insulin every few years to prevent it from going generic. In fact, they keep hiking the price of insulin up. So much so that the New York Times has done several articles on the topic.

My husband is a brittle diabetic because he had his pancreas removed. His monthly prescription bill runs about 6 grand. Thank God we live in a state that took the medicaid expansion. The last I looked, one vial of humalog was about 275.00. One vial of Lantus is about the same. He goes through about 200 test strips a month...call that almost 400 dollars. Insurance policies with high deductibles can kill families too. I had one with a 2500.00 deductible...where the hell am I going to come up with 2500 bucks? It was one of those that you had to pay the deductible BEFORE ANY benefit kicked in. Chronic illnesses are expensive as hell. 

[EmainMacha]

1 hour ago, bea said:

I do not understand this mindset. I have chronic health conditions and I have to have medical insurance. I also have two little girls with type 1 diabetes. Even with insurance, we pay thousands of dollars to keep them alive. Despite the fact that type 1 diabetics need insulin to stay alive, it is not free. Nor are parents of diabetics or adult diabetics given any sort of state aid. People die because they can't afford insulin. And the pharmaceutical companies fiddle with the chemical makeup of insulin every few years to prevent it from going generic. In fact, they keep hiking the price of insulin up. So much so that the New York Times has done several articles on the topic.

Anyway, it doesn't matter if you are a type 1 diabetic and you need insulin to stay alive. You cannot go up to the pharmacy and say " give me insulin, I have to have it or I'll die." They won't give it to you. And if a child is diagnosed with type 1 and their parents were foolish enough to join Samaritan, well, they are out of luck. Samaritan doesn't pay for insulin. Or for continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, glucometers - all of the many, many things it takes to keep a type 1 diabetic alive and healthy.

The NHS is not perfect but at least people have access to the drugs they need for chronic conditions. We have many Type 2 diabetics were I work (large South Asian population)and they have access to the medications they need in repeat prescription. I  know the US has some stellar, world class health care but I can never get my head around the insurance side of things.

If Scamaritan were truly 'Christian' surely there could be no exclusions for pre-existing conditions- 'I was sick and you took care of me' wasn't followed up by a list of exemptions unless the KJV is wildly different from the versions I grew up with. 

[ChickenettiLuvr]

I'm probably the odd duck here regarding Samaritan.  I actually worked for a church, doing their accounting, on a part-time basis.  Because they didn't offer health insurance, some of the employees were enrolled in Samaritan.

Being quite curious - and more than a little skeptical - I did some digging and research on the whole idea and the company. I made friends with two people who work at Samaritan. Very nice people and totally non-judgmental at all. And I found out the owner doesn't take home a small fortune in salary. 

The whole idea of it scares the crap out of me because I've had significant medical issues almost all of my adult life. (I'll stick with Blue Cross, thankyouverymuch.) But each month I had to mail out the "shares" for employees enrolled with Samaritan. And each month, along with the newsletter, I would receive a note telling me who/where to send the $$. Depending on the situation, sometimes there would be a brief explanation in case one wanted to send a note of encouragement. I never did -- just dutifully mailed the checks.

And since I previously worked as an auditor at  a large medical center, I called my former boss to ask the hospital's opinion on Samaritan. I was told the hospital  actually liked Samaritan and had no trouble getting payment that way. Patients were still liable for any remaining balance after Samaritan paid.

FYI - occasionally there were months with "greater need," where needs were  reimbursed only at 80%. (poor people!) And there was always the option to send a contribution toward the unmet needs.

Anyway, definitely not for me. Just sharing my perspective from another side .....

 

[slickcat79]

22 hours ago, ChickenettiLuvr said:

And since I previously worked as an auditor at  a large medical center, I called my former boss to ask the hospital's opinion on Samaritan. I was told the hospital  actually liked Samaritan and had no trouble getting payment that way. Patients were still liable for any remaining balance after Samaritan paid.

I'm not sure if things have changed over time, but Samaritan doesn't work like that anymore (unless specific hospitals are willing work out payment plans of some sort). The patient has to pay up front and get reimbursed by the other members of the organization.

I'm totally sure that there have been people who have had very good experiences with cost-sharing ministries. For some, even the cheapest private insurance plans are cost-prohibitive for a large family, and SM may be more affordable.

But the problems come in from all the issues people have mentioned upthread. Paying costs up front may be difficult or even impossible in the case of large unexpected expenses. Excluding people for pre-existing conditions is a huge problem, and one of the main reasons the ACA exists in the first place. Personally, I don't think I could even trust any SM member who tried to sell me on the program because of the huge conflict of interest. They get a discount on their monthly "share" for every member they refer, so they have a vested interest in making it sound great.

[ChickenettiLuvr]

Very good points, @slickcat79.