Christian health sharing organizations, exempt from ObamaCare, have put on a full-court press across the country in recent years to gain exemption from regulation by state governments.
Effective July 1, Indiana joins a collection of mostly conservative states who have taken legal steps to secure the rights of Christians to gain private healthcare regardless of federal government actions.
Kentucky has completely missed this opportunity so far, possibly because health sharing lobbyists mistakenly thought they had already changed Kentucky law.
But Indiana Christians may be operating under a false sense of security. You can look at the language of the new Indiana law here.
A court could very easily rule that any of the major health sharing organizations violates Sections 4 or 5 of the law if the organization takes possession of any member sharing funds at any point or if the court views penalties against failure to make timely payment between members as a form of breach of contract and, therefore, part of a failed "promise to pay" that puts the organization back under Indiana Department of Insurance regulation.
Christians really are going to have to look beyond little legislative tweaks and narrow exemptions if they really want to protect their health care freedoms at the state level.
Kentucky can lead on this issue by calling a special legislative session and changing the definition of "insurance" to include only companies that are registered as such with the Department of Insurance.
