Resolution Recognizing the Mutual Benefit Between Health Care Sharing and Health Savings Accounts

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The Resolution Recognizing the Mutual Benefit Between Health Care Sharing and Health Savings Accounts was adopted by the ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force at the 2014 States and Nation Policy Summit and approved by the Board of Directors on January 9, 2015. (Accessed July 14, 2017).

ALEC Bill Text

Summary

Recognizes the mutual benefit that would be created if citizens who opened a Health Savings Account would have the ability to choose between participation in a health care sharing ministry or the purchase of a high-deductible health insurance plan and encourages Congress to support federal legislation to create this additional health care cost support choice.

Model Resolution

WHEREAS, health care cost support is an essential element of economic security for American families, and individuals and families require more health care cost support choices, not fewer; and

WHEREAS, health care sharing ministries (HCSM) provide health care cost sharing arrangements among persons of similar and sincerely held religious beliefs, administered by not-for-profit religious organizations; and

WHEREAS, Congress recognized the legitimacy of HCSMs in 2010 when it granted participants in these ministries one of the nine exemptions from the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act; and

WHEREAS, participation in a HCSM typically costs 40-65 percent less than conventional health insurance; and

WHEREAS, for income earned in 2011, approximately 72 percent of HCSM participants were at or below 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), including approximately 44 percent of HCSM participants were at or below 200 percent of FPL; and

WHEREAS, when Health Savings Accounts (HSA) were established as part of the Medicare Modernization Act in December 2003, citizens opening a HSA were required to also purchase high-deductible health insurance plan; and

WHEREAS, according to a June 2013 report from America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Center for Policy and Research, as of January 2013, 15.5 million people in America have made HSAs their choice for health care cost support; and

WHEREAS, according to the same report, the states with the highest HSA enrollment are Illinois, Texas, California, Ohio, and Michigan; and

WHEREAS, according to the same report, children ages 0 to 19 comprise the largest group of lives covered by a HSA; and

WHEREAS, another AHIP report shows that 83 percent of HSA owners have incomes that put them in the middle income class or lower; and

WHEREAS, according to the Society of Human Resource Management, 43 percent of employers offered HSAs in 2012.

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that {insert state legislature} recognizes the mutual benefit that would be created if citizens who opened a Health Savings Account would have the ability to choose between participation in a health care sharing ministry or the purchase of a high-deductible health insurance plan.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that {insert state legislature} encourages Congress to support federal legislation as necessary to create this additional health care cost support choice.

Approved by the ALEC Board of Directors January 9, 2015.

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