Happy 2015 everyone!

Samaritan surprised us with another share reduction, the 4th in a row. This month’s is even bigger than the previous 3, with a 17% reduction being given. Previous months were 10%, 5%, 8% and now 17%. I don’t know how long they can keep this up, but we sure do like it! 🙂 And we NEVER got that with our insurance plan.

There was another large influx of members into Samaritan during the last couple of months, pushing membership to over 40,800 households now. When our family joined in Nov 2013 I think there were around 22,000 households, so we’ve nearly doubled in the last year. That is a LOT of growth and I’m very pleased with how Samaritan’s staff and board are handling it all. People are discovering they simply cannot afford ACA insurance premiums and don’t like the high deductibles they have to accept. Fortunately Samaritan (and other HCSMs) are available to provide an alternative which is even better than insurance! I am so grateful we found Samaritan and took that leap of faith to get out of the mainstream insurance industry.

You can join a health care sharing ministry at any time during the year, but you may not be able to quit your insurance plan outside of the open enrollment period (depending on your plan type), so now is a great time to research health care sharing ministries.  Open enrollment for ACA plans (including changes/cancellations for some plans/new signups) ends on Feb 15, so I expect there will be a continuation of big signups at Samaritan through that period. New members can join throughout the year and there will be many, but the largest influx is during this time period.