A Better Way to Pay for Healthcare

This faith and finance podcast is underwritten in part by Christian Healthcare Ministries. Are you finding it increasingly challenging to find affordable healthcare? Christian Healthcare Ministries is a budget-friendly, biblical, and compassionate healthcare cost-sharing alternative that aligns with your Christian values. And it's available in all 50 states and around the world.

Learn more at chministries.org slash faith buy. Hey, open enrollment ends in just a few days. Have you decided on a new health insurance plan yet?

Hi, I'm Rob West. Maybe you don't have to. What if there was another way, a biblical solution for meeting your healthcare costs? Well, there is, and I'll talk about that first today. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. So what exactly am I talking about? Well, it's medical cost sharing, an alternative to insurance that can save you hundreds of dollars every month. You might say it's based on the principle found in Galatians 6 to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. In fact, that verse is the scriptural foundation for Christian Healthcare Ministries, an underwriter of this program, and the oldest organization in the medical cost-sharing space. They've been helping believers share the financial burden of healthcare since 1981 and have made it possible for members to share nearly 11 billion dollars in medical costs. So how is this approach different from health insurance? Well, for starters, instead of paying premiums, members contribute a monthly share amount based on the plan they choose. That turns out to be a lot less expensive because CHM members are considered self-pay by their healthcare providers. That means the cost of those services is a lot less than if they were covered by insurance. Members are then reimbursed from the share pool for covered costs. For instance, while health insurance premiums in the Affordable Care Act marketplace may be comparable due to premium tax credits, the out-of-pocket costs are often significantly higher than those with CHM due to extremely high deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums.

However, with CHM, the highest annual personal responsibility cost is six thousand dollars per person under their bronze plan, giving you a potentially lower cost alternative that won't break your monthly budget. Health insurance companies operate with a business model that prioritizes financial sustainability, often including shareholder obligations. In contrast, a non-profit medical sharing organization focuses solely on its members.

Without the need to allocate funds for shareholder dividends, these organizations can direct more resources toward member needs, helping to keep costs low and making healthcare more accessible. Now, one of the ways insurers try to keep costs down is by making agreements with healthcare providers. Those agreements result in so-called coverage networks that then limit your choices. If you receive medical services outside the network, the insurance company could decline to pay, so you're on your own if your favorite doctor or facility is outside the network. But that's never a problem with medical cost sharing.

There are no networks. Members can see any medical provider they wish, in any facility they wish. As long as the service is covered in the plan, and most are, they'll be reimbursed for the cost.

Medical cost sharing is also portable. Members don't have to be stuck in a job they don't like just to get health insurance. Their CHM membership goes with them if they get a new job.

The same is true if they want to start their own business. They don't lose coverage by leaving their job. Another major difference between Christian Healthcare Ministries and a health insurance company is that you join an entire community of fellow believers united by their faith in Christ. Members pray for each other. Often CHM's customer support reps pray with members who call in with medical problems. Those words of encouragement and compassion are priceless benefits. Now, I don't want to sound mean-spirited about health insurance companies. They can be a real blessing, especially for catastrophic illnesses.

But they also have become huge bureaucracies that are bogged down even further by government regulation, and that's unfortunate. Medical cost sharing avoids most of those problems because it's not insurance. Christian Healthcare Ministries has much lower overhead than a typical insurance company, which keeps costs to members low. Members also have more control over their health care decisions.

With no insurance company in the middle, they can work directly with medical providers to set up treatment plans and payments. When an organization is committed to biblical stewardship, generosity, and sharing the love of Christ in practical ways, it's really worth checking out. CHM offers a biblical solution to health care costs.

By the way, if you signed up for health insurance in 2025, but now want to try medical cost sharing instead, you can probably still cancel that insurance without penalty. To find out a lot more, just head to chministries.org. All right, your calls are next, 800-525-7000.

We'll be right back. Are you searching for a way to become a better, faithful steward of the resources that God has given you? Well, download the Faithfi app and join the 37,000 others who are already using our app. The Faithfi app will provide you with wisdom, community, and simply help you stay on track with your finances. We have three money management options to choose from, so find an option that fits your unique needs. It's available on desktop or mobile.

Simply go to faithfi.com and click app to get started. Frustrated by your health insurance? Confused by the network restrictions and increasing premiums?

There's a better way. Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a Christian community delivering a faith-based solution to the high cost of health care. Take back control of your health care with the ability to choose a provider you trust with no network restrictions and savings of up to 40%. Learn more and enroll today at chministries.org slash faithfi.

That's chministries.org slash faithfi. Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance. It's time to turn the corner and take your calls and questions today. We've got lines open. If you have a question, give us a call, 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you.

Let's go to Chicago. Allison, how can we help? Hi, my husband and I are purchasing term life insurance and the question has come up, do we make each other the primary beneficiary with our children as the contingent beneficiary? We have a blended family and three of our kids are already grown, two of them married. Three of them are still in the house. They're getting ready to launch into the world.

They're teenagers. Yes, all right. Yeah, so I think the first thing you need to do is just kind of work through your estate plans with a blended family. It's a little more complicated, but I think the goal is of course unity and oneness as husband and wife and then praying through what God has entrusted to you so you can decide how much you want to leave to your children and how much you want to leave to ministry or charity.

There's only three places we can leave money to the government. We want to minimize that to our heirs and to ministry or charity and so deciding how you want to approach that, especially with kids from a previous marriage, I think that can take a little extra time and attention to kind of sort through all of that and then once you have that plan in place, then we put all the necessary planning tools in place so you would certainly want to will, especially with you know minor children at home because that's going to name your guardian, but it's going to be kind of the catch-all for making sure what God has entrusted to you, personal assets and furniture and financial assets and real estate and otherwise is passed according to your wishes and then the beneficiary designation whether it's on an IRA, a 401k or a life insurance policy is also going to designate where certain types of accounts including term life insurance will go you know at your death and that happens outside of probate and goes directly to those heirs. So have you all decided exactly how you want everything distributed at your death if let's say you were to pass away at the same time?

Well so we're trying to work through that right now. Our term life insurance is like our 15-year term life insurance is getting ready to expire and so the decisions we made 15 years ago was my husband made me the beneficiary and then for some reason we had a much smaller policy on me that named the children and I don't really recall why we did it that way and so now we're thinking that each of us should be the primary for the purpose of maintaining the same lifestyle that we have for the kids that are in the house and so it got a little bit confusing because we are kind of on a timeline to get this done and we realize we can change it afterwards but we kind of want to complete the process. We're also in the process of trying to get all of our stuff together for an attorney for the will and so it's just kind of all culminating but the life insurance thing we kind of want to get taken care of this month so we don't have a period of time where we're uninsured. Yes, yeah that makes sense. Well I think the key is yeah I mean typically what folks will do is make each other as husband and wife the primary beneficiary on everything and so that way regardless of who predeceases the other the remaining assets for you all as a couple one flesh are then with the other spouse to be able to maintain the lifestyle provide for the kids and you know your spouse and so forth and then you would have a plan in your will or perhaps in a trust you know to handle everything else. You know one option is if you did a revocable trust you could have as the contingent beneficiary on all these accounts including your term life insurance the trust named and then that way the trust managed by the trustee could then house all of the assets at your death and then they could be distributed based on your wishes so you know you could have them paid out to the kids as they reach certain ages you could have the expenses of the children especially the minor children paid for out of the trust and then eventually at certain triggering points or events you know the assets could be distributed you know to your kids as heirs but all of that could be controlled through the trust beyond your life apart from that you would just name the kids as contingent beneficiaries and then let's say you and your husband passed away at the same time then everything would go straight to the kids and if you had minor kids that would be held in custody and managed by you know whoever is named as guardian at that point so i think you've got a couple of options there but typically i would make your spouse the primary and then perhaps either the kids or a revocable trust if you decided to go that direction as the contingent and so let's say that i died and then so my husband received the whole thing then that's done with correct it's not like if it it doesn't carry on after that it just does the whole thing just go to him right then yes is there with with a beneficiary designation well like so if he's 100 and i die then he would get it but if yes he died a year later that's just a separate issue like any it just kind of it is yeah because that policy would be closed it would the death benefit would be paid out to him and then he would be free to do with that what he wants and then that's where his own estate planning at that point would kick in in terms of how he wants to handle it passing at his death and so if you wanted to set that up to be able to determine you know assets that you had had you know prior to marriage or life insurance that you have on your life that's intended for your children because of your blended family that's where you would want to of course talk through that with your husband and make sure you all are on the same page and really good communication and driving toward unity but to the extent you all came to a decision that you wanted to handle certain assets differently for the benefit of your children that perhaps you had prior to marrying one another then that's where a trust would come into place because you would not have certain assets paid directly to your husband they might go into the trust for the benefit of your kids okay it doesn't matter if they're adults it does not matter if they're adults it really comes down to how you want to distribute them and that's really something you and he need to work through to make that decision we appreciate your call today thanks for being on the program allison all the best to you let's go to indiana hi sandy go ahead hi um i want some information on savings bonds i have been to my bank and i have called my credit union and neither one deals in savings bonds i've got a grandson who's turning one and i thought that might be a good birthday present for him for the future but i just i don't know where to go i don't know what to do yeah it's a great question and really you almost can't get them anymore uh now some banks if you're an existing customer and you have a paper bond they will redeem it but not all of them will because everything is moved online and so the way you would purchase a savings bond is on the web at treasury direct.gov treasury direct.gov and that's the place where you would buy the u.s savings bond you'd open an account there you could make your son the beneficiary it could even be a custodial account or your grandson you could purchase them there and then they would be you would always be able to check the value of them on that website because they would be electronic there's no more paper bonds really now i will say they're not as attractive as they used to be just because the the rates are lower and you can do better elsewhere so let me throw out two other ideas one would be a 529 account which is essentially a college savings account and if you want to learn more about those you could go to savingforcollege.com and you could set up an automatic amount you put in every month or a one-time amount and then it could be invested and grow the second is you could just buy a good high quality mutual fund like maybe one of the faith-based investing funds at our website faithfi.com in a separate account and then just keep it for him and give it to him down the road thanks for your call we'll be right back as the leading advocate for the christian financial industry kingdom advisors serves the public by promoting the integration of a biblical world view across every aspect of the financial services industry and we serve a growing network of thousands of christian financial professionals equipping and empowering them to carry biblical financial wisdom to their clients peers and community for more information visit kingdomadvisors.com that's kingdomadvisors.com faith and finance is grateful for support from sound mind investing for more than 30 years they've offered financial wisdom for living well smi provides step-by-step guidance for do-it-yourself investors from those just getting started to those getting ready for retirement more information including a short video webinar on profit and peace of mind no matter what's happening in the market is available at soundmindinvesting.org thanks for joining us today on faith and finance i'm rob west we're so glad you're along with us today let's tackle a couple of emails this first question comes to us by way of hannah she writes we recently sold our house for a good profit and we're wondering how to tithe on it do we tithe on the full amount we received or only what goes above the initial price and interest we paid you would tithe on the difference between the sale price hannah and the initial purchase price so you don't have to look at anything else other than what is that true increase in the value of the property because if when we're giving a tie that is based on the increase the profit so no matter what asset it is whether it's a stock or a piece of real estate it's simply the difference between the sale price and the original purchase price that increase then you would apply a 10 tithe and then give that to your local church i think that's a great idea this next one comes to us from karen she writes i have a 401k and i'm wondering how i can invest according to my values with the options that are available in it it seems like the only options are big companies that i'd rather not be invested in do you have any suggestions well yeah if you don't find one of the faith-based investing fund families in your 401k now and there's a good chance you won't i would contact your 401k custodian and tell them that you're interested in values aligned investing and that you'd like to suggest the addition of some of these fund families like praxis like timothy plan like eventide like one ascent or guide stone it may not happen right away but as they start to hear from more and more of their 401k account holders they're eventually going to add those and they're always re-evaluating what new funds need to be in the plan so just because they're not in there now doesn't mean they won't be in there next year and so i would reach out first second you can also see if you have something called a brokerage window that's just simply the opportunity for you to invest beyond the menu of choices in your 401k in anything that's available through that custodian and odds are if it's a fidelity or schwab or one of the big brokerage firms you'd be able to get access to one of the faith-based investing companies the third option just put enough in your 401k to get the match and then put the rest up to the annual contribution limit in a roth ira or a traditional ira and then you most certainly could invest in the faith-based investing fund families when you do that all right let's get to one more here maria says we want to give our daughter 500 to invest so that it can grow for when she buys a house later in life should we put it in an ira a cd savings bond or something else it really depends on the time horizon if you have at least 10 years i'd put it in a mutual fund just a stock fund that would allow it to grow over time if not i think a cd would be a great option thanks for writing to us by the way folks if you have a question send it along askrob at faithfi.com let's go back to the phone chicago's where we're headed next bernie go ahead oh thank you rob i love your show thanks for taking my call thank you the question is um i was thinking of buying these two single-family homes they're both 250 000 each i have property that's worth seven or eight what is the implications if i want to sell a multi-level and buy homes so there's something i need to know uh other than the standard you know closing costs and all that the multi is a is a mortgage free that was nothing nothing owed on it okay yeah well the um you can do a 1031 exchange which is also known as a like-kind exchange and you can exchange an apartment building for rental single-family homes because both types of property qualify as like-kind under uh the irs section code 1031 um so it defines that term like-kind pretty broadly and that's why both of those because they're used for investment or business purposes as opposed to personal use can be you know factored into the 1031 exchange so that just simply means you'd be able to sell the apartment building so long as you followed the timing of identifying the next properties within 45 days closing on them within 180 days you essentially kick the can down the road with respect to the capital gains tax on that multi-family property which is a good thing because you don't have to pay that now you could pay it later and get full use of this money moving forward i think the key would just be that you find those properties that make sense don't get over levered because we don't want you to be in a situation where let's say the economy were to take a pretty significant downturn and you went for a longer period of time than you expected without a renter i just don't want you to put yourself in a in a difficult spot but assuming you go in with enough equity you can take advantage of the 1031 you clearly are going to have those costs on the sale of the property and so you need to factor that in because that's going to come out of the proceeds of the sale but assuming you account for all of that and you like the idea of switching the multi-family for the multiple single families then it certainly can be done thank you so much i appreciate you taking my time now answer my question thank you so much all right god bless you bernie thanks for going today let's finish up in pennsylvania today hi cory go ahead hi rod thank you so much i'll be brief i have a car that i bought years ago i still owe on it about 5500 minimum payment is 185 a month however uh it's starting to nickel and dime me on the cost of maintenance the bank owns the title what are my options what is the car worth a little less than what's left on the loan probably about four grand yeah well i mean the the best option is you sell it as a private sale and pay off the loan and then you'd have to come out of pocket for the difference but you try to maximize and get as much value out of it as you can by selling it yourself and get as close to that uh you know 5500 as you can and try to you know spend as little as possible on the difference the other option is if you're wanting to buy another car you know you could try to roll this into that deal essentially where you know you would trade this car in and you know again you're gonna have to come out of pocket and i guess the challenge is you know you will have to you know well let me back up the dealership may not give you as much as you would get from a private sale and so you may end up having to pay more towards satisfying that loan but at the end of the day we need to make sure that that loan gets paid in full because you know you have that obligation and so that's why trying to maximize the sale and then turning around and buying something you can afford you know is the best path forward does that make sense yes last question uh the car itself is the collateral on the loan so i don't own the title so i don't think selling it personally would be an option because i don't own the title is that uh no it would be i mean you're going to have you can do a private sale even with a loan on the car and they're just going to need to be paid in full before they release that title but you certainly can sell it as long as you know you are able to cover the difference between what's owed and what you sell it for because you know when you pay off the loan that's what's going to release that title and then you can transfer it to the other party okay thank you so much yep all right you're welcome cory thanks for your call today well that's going to do it for us today a big thanks to my team today so thankful for our call screener today as well as dan and amy and jim couldn't do them without them hope you'll come back and join us next time and we'll do it all over again until then god bless you bye-bye faith and finance is provided by faith buy and listeners like you