Here’s to your health and their wealth

Health Care Sharing Ministries, or HCSMs, advertise themselves as a more affordable, faith-based alternative to health insurance. But John Oliver explains some of the massive limitations these plans can have.

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34 thoughts on “Here’s to your health and their wealth”

  1. JoyL,a commenter to the above story, wrote (with tongue in cheek i’m sure):

    How surprising! Americans setting up companies using religion to make money off people who can’t afford actual healthcare insurance.

     

  2. in case you didn’t watch the video, about 18 minutes in, john talks about his foray into health ministry also described below by mashable.

    John Oliver’s fake church is now a ‘healthcare sharing ministry’ in Florida. Let him explain why. (mashable.com)

    In 2015, John Oliver, patron saint of Explaining Boring Complicated Stuff That Matters A Lot, drew attention to the tax-exempt status of money-grabbing televangelists by starting his own money-grabbing church, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption. The church was shut down after a few weeks, and all “tithes” were donated to Doctors Without Borders. But on Sunday night, Our Lady rose again, albeit in a new and even more obscure form.
    Oliver’s team created a legally recognized “healthcare sharing ministry” in Florida as a spinoff from the church, dubbing it Our Lady of Perpetual Health, and even inviting SNL alumna Rachel Dratch aka “Wanda Jo” to help promote it. If you live in Florida, you can pay $1.99 to join, and receive a “first aid kit” (three Band-Aids in a plastic case) in return.

    What is a health care sharing ministry (HCBM), then? As Oliver explains, it’s a long-standing way small communities, usually bound together by a shared faith, have pooled their money to help members pay for healthcare costs. But due to a loophole in the Affordable Care Act allowing HCBM members to avoid a tax penalty for not having insurance, the HCBM has been increasing in popularity since the ACA was passed and infiltrated by for-profit companies — and is now being marketed, especially to conservative audiences, as “freedom from insurance”. Because, as Oliver makes clear, this is definitely not insurance. Not only are HCBMs not subject to the same regulations as actual insurers, but many also include clauses to exclude from coverage any illness connected to “lifestyle choices”, like drinking alcohol, having extramarital sex, or simply not living a “Christian” lifestyle.

    So if you thought that there might be a limit to the number of ways the American healthcare system can be manipulated for profit and power, here’s another reason why you’re wrong. Grifting, it seems, is perpetual.

  3. seems, one way or another, compounding faulty health insurance with anti-vaxing and climate change denial the magaT s are hell bent on self-extinction.

  5. Wow.   If we had truly, universal healthcare, it would put a lot of scammers out of work. So…jobs? ~ 👍🏻 ~

  6. One of those HCSMs (Medishare – the phone number is 1-800-bible in case you’re interested)  advertises frequently on Sirius channels I listen to. Their guidelines for “membership “ are almost verbatim what John recounted. (800)bible – give me a break. It’s always struck me as BS. Oliver confirmed my suspicions.

  7. sam also tried to warn us about them last year

    For the many Christian Americans joining health care sharing ministries, it’s important to ask “What Would Jesus Do?” Because in the case of these shady faux health insurance providers, we’re sure the answer would be: run fast as hell in the other direction.

  8. from business insider via msn:

    Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer addressed the ongoing criminal investigations into the Trump Organization on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Thursday.

    […]

    When asked whether he thought Trump would face justice, Cohen told Kimmel: “When it comes to the Department of Justice – and I’ve said this in many, many tweets – the wheels of justice turn slowly, but eventually they do turn full circle.

    “Understand that you’re not just fighting anybody. You’re fighting someone who has money behind him and also has the former power of the president of the United States.”

    “And so he’s going to fight like the dog that he is,” Cohen said of his former boss.

    “But here’s where I say that he’s in trouble. He’s in trouble, Allen Weisselberg’s in trouble, Weisselberg’s kids, Matt Calamari, Rudy Giuliani – they’re all in trouble. Why? Because there’s documentary evidence that’s in” prosecutors’ possession, he said.

    Cohen continued: “They don’t really need Weisselberg or Calamari. One of them will flip to save themselves. And once you get Calamari, you don’t need Weisselberg. When you get Weisselberg, you don’t need Calamari.

    “But the truth is, they don’t need either of them because they have the documents to prove exactly the illegalities done by Trump.”

  9. Since the announcement that the good state of Florida will require public dissemination of your political or ideological beliefs, if the law survives legal challenges, I have been thinking about my response (if I lived in the American version of hell).  What if I change my mind several times a lifetime, or year or day?  How do I ensure that my current thinking is what everybody knows what it is, not something that I thought an hour ago?  How do I look up others?  If the state requires the information, it will become public, and I suspect most likely if it is not hard right authoritative dictatorship adherence.

  13. Renee, seems like a good enough reason to me. Combine it with the lack of self-reflection of the church personnel who did the same kid-raping Bink noted, and it’s a no brainer.

    Bink, FWIW, it seems plenty high to me.  Says it all (assuming you’re referring both to the “racist, misogynisitc…fake Christian conman” and the priests, bishops, etc. in the Catholic church who engaged in such kid raping).

  14. i don’t mind the Anglican Church, as long as the priest solves murders of local eccentrics

  15. My company moved us to a crappier healthcare insurance starting July 1st.
    Maybe our insurance broker got a nice kickback for moving us mid-year?

  19. 116F degrees in BC, Canada on Saturday , this heat dome is much bigger than just our portion of it.

    We are on the down slope of the High. temps here in the mid 70’s.
    Some areas have had as much as 6 in. of rain in the last three days. 6 more inches coming to Carlsbad , New Mexico this week.

    The Jet Stream looks like Chinese Dragon .

  21. Craig – Your link on Ivanker mentioned Mark Burnett. Is Bezos ever going to release “The Apprentice” outtakes of Orange Adolf?

  22. New report on that condo …………….. Woman on the phone  at the time of the collapse tells her  bother that the pool is sinking , as the noise of building  coming apart in the background gets louder, then she screams. 
     
    Inside Edition 
     

  23. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/28/texas-voters-government-priorities/

    “Don’t forget where we started. Medicaid expansion, which would bring in a dollar in federal money for every dime spent by the state on coverage for the uninsured, has the support of 67% of Texas voters, including 50% of Republican voters and 90% of Democratic voters. Easy vote, right? Texas lawmakers have been turning that money away since it first became available under Obamacare a dozen years ago. Texas is one of 12 states that aren’t taking part.“

    Republicans want to kill off the ill and the elderly if they aren’t economically sound.

  25. Sea Level Rise is about to meet the Florida Real Estate market  in a way  everyone can understand. 
    “Saltwater Intrusion” doesn’t sound very interesting does it ? 
    And it was an unknow term  40 years ago.
    Mean while in the Keys , the county is looking for Billions to , ( get this )
    raise the streets  in places like Key West. 
    This terrible story out of Surf Side is a window into the future.  Whether we chose to look through it or not. 
    The hard part is going to be just how much money we are going to throw into the oceans before understand  our problem.
     
     

  26. Sea Level Rise is about to meet the Florida Real Estate market  in a way  everyone can understand. 
    “Saltwater Intrusion” doesn’t sound very interesting does it ? 
    And it was an unknow term  40 years ago.
    Mean while in the Keys , the county is looking for Billions to , ( get this )
    raise the streets  in places like Key West. 
    This terrible story out of Surf Side is a window into the future.  Whether we chose to look through it or not. 
    The hard part is going to be just how much money we are going to throw into the oceans before understand  our problem.
    When I first understood  that all this was going from linear  to  exponential. I thought  that would come after I was gone. 
    Bad guess. 

    Climate Scientists Eye Sea Level Rise as Contributing Factor in Miami Condo Collapse

    June 28, 2021
    https://weather.com/news/trending/video/climate-scientists-eye-sea-level-rise-as-contributing-factor-in-miami-condo

  29. Blue –
    Nice catch. 

    Wetlands are huge carbon sinks, and shelter for fry as well.
    This is not a waste of effort.

  30. There is a Jimmy Stewart  movie about the first off shore drilling  in LA. 
    I think the real well was in about 40 feet of water. 
    The state was totally  taken over by the boom that followed. 
    They let the “Doodle Buggers”  go any where  in the wetlands.  That lasted  for nearly 30 years.  They cut that land to pieces searching for oil and gas.  And when they found it , to cut the their way from the well to the market with a pipeline. 
    The wetlands  of LA. were  a whole system  in 1950, 20 years later , they had been chopped into corn chips. 
     

  32. …grooving to this right now; LL aka Sean Holton (i think that’s right) would have dug it, so i shall in his stead, yet another genius full album i’m sharing:

    (…to be completely forthright I just finished it ✌️)

  33. Also, it’s tomato sandwich season, so I’ll be eating those in his stead, and also because I gotta eat all these ducking tomatoes 

    (…good problem to have🙂)

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