In response to an investigation into the Seiter and Walborn cases, Liberty said it was transparent about its guidelines, which members agree to when they sign up.
“We regret that processing of these members’ invoices has been delayed, but in an organization that receives hundreds of thousands of invoices each year, processing errors can occur despite our best efforts,” said Timothy Bryan, vice president of the group’s marketing and communications.
“We note that these situations occurred more than five years ago and Liberty has significantly improved its processes over this period,” he added.
Liberty agreed to a settlement with the Ohio attorney general in 2021 that required it to replace its top executives, but it did not admit wrongdoing. A group of former Liberty members also sued the department that year, alleging the organization refused to pay for covered medical procedures while reaping “massive profits.” Liberty said in court filings that the Ohio settlement remedied the plaintiffs’ claims. The trial is ongoing.
Warnings and opt-outs
Weldon, Trump’s choice to lead the CDC, praised health care sharing ministries to offer consumers more options and flexibility. But he told NBC News that as president of the Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries, he was concerned that bad actors could cast a negative light on the model.
“I tried to promote bringing all these ministries together to develop rigorous standards of self-policing,” he said, adding: “They all kind of walked at their own pace, and I I was reminded repeatedly that if they didn’t really clean up their act, they were going to be regulated by 50 different (state) governments.
Indeed, some state officials and other groups have attempted to limit the ministries’ reach.
The American Hospital Association sent a warning about the departments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year. More than a dozen public insurance services have issued consumer alerts on ministries. And over the past five years, some regulators and state attorneys general have filed a series of lawsuits against a few health care-sharing departments, accusing them of misrepresenting their plans.
At the federal level, Rep. Jared Huffman, Democrat of California, reintroduced a bill last year that would require departments sharing health care to submit annual financial statements to the IRS and other regulators, but the bill was passed. blocked in committee.