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The bill gives tax relief and clearer tax status to members and operators of health care sharing ministries, but it risks encouraging underinsurance, weakening consumer protections, and reducing federal revenue.
Members of health care sharing ministries (taxpayers who join) can deduct membership, sharing, and administrative fees as medical expenses on their federal tax returns, lowering their taxable income.
Health care sharing ministries and their members gain clearer tax treatment because the bill explicitly excludes these ministries from being treated as health plans or insurance under the tax code, reducing uncertainty for ministries, members, and tax preparers.
People who enroll in health care sharing ministries may face large unpaid medical bills because deductible payments could encourage enrollment in arrangements that lack comprehensive insurance coverage.
Members of health care sharing ministries (particularly lower-income consumers) may lose regulatory protections because explicitly excluding these ministries from being treated as insurance can leave them outside consumer-protection rules tied to insurance regulation.
Allowing ministry fees to be deducted as medical expenses reduces federal tax revenue, which could increase the deficit or require spending cuts or other offsets affecting taxpayers broadly.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows membership and administrative payments to qualifying health care sharing ministries to be deducted as medical expenses and declares such ministries are not insurance or health plans for tax purposes.
Allows individuals to treat membership costs for qualifying health care sharing ministries (including administrative fees and medical expense sharing) as deductible medical expenses on their federal income tax returns, and separately states that such ministries are not to be treated as health plans or insurance for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code. These changes apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2025.
Introduced February 20, 2025 by Theodore Paul Budd · Last progress February 20, 2025