Atlanta, Georgia, company faces federal lawsuit over health sharing ministry plans

A federal lawsuit has been filed against Aliera Companies, an Atlanta, Georgia-based company, over the sale of health insurance and the company’s description of its role in a Christian healthcare sharing ministry. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta on June 5 by three women plaintiffs. According to the lawsuit, Aliera is running a scheme that allows the firm to avoid state and federal insurance laws in order to generate revenue.

The lawsuit describes Aliera’s marketing and sales operation as “an extremely lucrative — but illegal — arrangement,” and states that the firm keeps about 84 cents of every dollar its members pay.

Aliera entered into an agreement with healthcare cost sharing ministry Trinity HealthShare in 2018, which allowed Aliera to develop, market, and sell Trinity’s plans. The lawsuit argues that Trinity, whose bylaws have Christian undertones, does not actually qualify as a true healthcare sharing ministry because anyone can become a member regardless of their faith.

David Walbert, the lawyer representing the three plaintiffs, said Aliera “is selling bad insurance and masquerading as a ‘religious ministry’ to try to escape insurance rules.” He said that by claiming it is not insurance, Aliera ignores the Affordable Care Act requirement that 85 percent of premiums be paid out as benefits, and that Aliera pays out only a fraction of that to its insureds, with the rest going to administrative costs and profits. These are the plaintiffs’ allegations and have not been tested in court.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of all current and former participants in Aliera plans with a healthcare sharing ministry from 2017 to the present.

An earlier headline stated that “Feds hit carrier with lawsuit over ‘illegal’ insurance scheme,” which may have suggested the federal government was suing Aliera. In fact, the federal lawsuit was brought by a number of private individuals. Aliera is also not a carrier; it administers and markets health cost sharing plans.

Source: Read the original report